Analysis: Eurocontrol data backs predicted rise in summer flight delays

European air navigation body Eurocontrol has confirmed this summer will be “complex and challenging” for air traffic control, with worse delays than last year and any severe weather “likely to push delay figures even higher”.

Eurocontrol noted last week that air traffic across Europe is up by 5% this year compared with 2024, with “air traffic flow management delays also up 5% [and] these trends are expected to continue into the summer”.

It reported: “While some air navigation service providers (ANSPs) are expected to improve their performance compared to 2024, lack of air traffic control capacity is expected to cause high delays in nine area control centres (ACCs).

“These bottlenecks will cause a daily average delay well above the target established by the EU Performance Plan. Additional disruptions such as weather or strikes could push delays higher.”

Eurocontrol warned in March that air traffic control delays and disruption across Europe could be worse this summer than last, with head of air traffic management operations Steven Moore blaming “a highly saturated network where any issue becomes a network problem”.

It noted last summer was “extremely difficult at times” – despite air traffic in Europe remaining at 96% of 2019’s level – because traffic was not shared evenly, with “many states well above 2019 levels particularly during the summer”.

That led to “extremely poor performance” in summer 2024, with delays above 2023 levels and “more than four times higher than the network capacity target”.

Capacity and staffing caused almost half (48%) of the delays last year and adverse weather 43%, adding “even more tension to an already saturated situation”.

Traffic in Europe is concentrated in 80% of the airspace available before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and “remains very unevenly distributed, with ASNPs in southwest, southeast and central Europe facing 30%-40% more flights than in 2019”.

Eurocontrol reported delays in continental Spain, where air traffic has increased by 8% on 2024, are already up by two-thirds (67%) on 2024 and warned: “The efforts ASNPs are making to deliver capacity will not be enough to deliver adequate summer performance.”

It blamed “serious structural problems with capacity and staffing” and warned of “high delays” and “significant bottlenecks” in the regions of air traffic control centres in Zagreb, Marseille, Barcelona, Seville, Munich, Karlsruhe (Germany), Athens, Macedonia and Budapest.

Director of network management Iacopo Prissinotti said “capacity shortages” in these control centres mean: “We know this summer will be difficult.”

Eurocontrol estimates air traffic controller numbers are 10%-20% lower than they need to be in areas with high delays. It warned of “a very high daily delay average” and said: “Additional disruptive elements [such as strikes, severe weather or system failures] would strain the ability of the network to manage high levels of traffic.”