Air traffic control sees fewer delays despite record flights

UK air traffic control delays are among the lowest in Europe despite UK airspace being the busiest along with Spain, according to pan-European air traffic control body Eurocontrol.

However, France, Spain and Greece remain air traffic control trouble spots due to shortages of air traffic controllers, exacerbated by bad weather, in spite of flight delays across Europe this summer being down on last year.

The figures fly in the face of repeated claims by Ryanair of an increase in UK flight delays due to staff shortages at national air traffic service Nats.

Ryanair claimed earlier this month that UK air traffic control (ATC) delays this year are “up over 80% versus last year”. It blamed “Nats staff shortages” and demanded Nats “urgently explain” its “failure to properly resource the UK ATC service during the peak summer travel season”.

Neal McMahon, Ryanair chief operations officer, said more than 30 Ryanair flights and almost 6,000 passengers “suffered delays before breakfast” on August 12 “because Nats cannot adequately staff its ATC operation”. 

The carrier gave no detail of where the delays occurred.

Yet Eurocontrol attributed just 3% of air traffic control delays across Europe to the UK in the week of August 10-16, in line with the average all summer, when France saw 38% of delays, Spain 22% and Greece 11%.

Marseille was the worst-affected air traffic control region in Europe, responsible for 21% of all air traffic delays, followed by Barcelona on 17%. Eurocontrol attributed just 2% of delays to air traffic to the control centre for London.

This is despite UK air traffic being up by 2% year on year in the week. Air traffic in France was up by 1% year on year, but in Greece by 5% and in Spain by 6%.

Bad weather across Europe was responsible for 40% of air traffic delays in the week.

Eurocontrol data for the previous week, August 3-9, presents a similar picture with just 3% of delays attributable to UK air traffic control but 40% to France, 14% to Spain, 11% to Greece and 9% to Germany.

July saw record monthly air traffic across Europe with more than 1.13 million flights and a peak of 37,659 on a single day on July 24

However, the proportion of on-time arrivals in the month was up by 4.5 percentage points on July 2025 at 72.6%, and the proportion of on-time departures improved by six percentage points to 65.3%.

Eurocontrol noted two-thirds of the delays (64%) in the month were attributable to air traffic control capacity and staffing “particularly in France, Spain and Greece”.

It also reported France, Spain and Greece were responsible for 71% of all air traffic delays in Europe for the year to date.

Nats defended its performance in the face of Ryanair’s August 12 complaint, saying: “Nats continues to be one of the best-performing air navigation service providers in Europe, contributing very little delay relative to the volume and complexity of the air traffic we handle safely every day. Just one in every 1,000 UK flights experience an air traffic control-related delay."