Flight delays across Europe in the last week of July were worse than the same period last year and pre-pandemic 2019 amid bad weather and air traffic control staff issues, new figures show.
They amounted to an average of 138,600 minutes a day, with the main causes being weather as well as capacity and air traffic control (ATC) staffing, according to Eurocontrol.
Overall network punctuality was also worse than in the equivalent week in 2019 despite the number of flights only reaching 93% of 2019 levels at a daily average of 32,767.
Eurocontrol said: “After having deteriorated over the March-April period because of significant en-route delays related to industrial action in France, arrival and departure punctuality have only marginally improved in May and June, and are still worse than in 2019.”
Arrivals punctuality stood at 61% and departure punctuality at just 53.2%, each decreasing by 8.7 percentage points, Eurocontrol found.
“This was also a deterioration, although much smaller, compared to the same period in 2022,” the group’s European aviation overview said.
“Seasonal weather, ATC capacity and ATC staffing delays strongly influenced en-route delays across the network last week.”
High levels of delays were attributed to a low pressure cold front over northern Europe moving from west to east.
A fire in the terminal at Catania airport on July 16 continued to impact punctuality with the capacity still reduced and operations limited to Schengen flights only.
“London Gatwick was impacted by aerodrome capacity regulations throughout the week,” Eurocontrol reported.
Athens, as well as many Greek island airports, was affected by ATC and capacity delays throughout the week.
Germany accounted for 27% of all en-route delays; France for 26% and Hungary at 10%.
The main traffic flow was intra-European with 25,567 daily flights during the week, 1% fewer than the previous seven days.
Intercontinental flows recorded 6,378 daily flights on average last week, in line with the previous week.