How delayed were flights this summer? A deep dive into the numbers

Summertime has always been the busiest travel season thanks to a combination of sun, school holidays, and the abundance of outdoor activities available. But with the increased demand for travel also comes an increased chance of flight delays and cancellations as airlines and airports buckle under the large influx of passengers flying to their holiday destinations.

So how did the summer of 2024 fare? From the number of passengers disrupted and on-time performance of flights, to the busiest flight routes, we’ve compiled key global data to give you a complete overview of this summer’s flight disruptions.

Disruptions on the (sharp) rise

One key takeaway? We’ve seen a sharp increase in the number of passengers disrupted. In Europe alone, 110 million passengers out of a total of 285 million experienced a flight disruption. This means that approximately 39% of all passengers experienced a delay or cancellation, the highest since the pandemic.

We also found that there’s been an increase in the number of severe flight delays, with as much as 2.2% of passengers in Europe experiencing flight delays over 3 hours, compared to that of previous years.

The biggest causes

So what’s behind this increase in passengers experiencing flight disruptions?

It’s no surprise that this year’s biggest disruption by far is the now infamous CrowdStrike outage, where a faulty security update crashed millions of Windows devices worldwide, including critical systems used by airlines and airports. It grounded thousands of flights across the world and caused airport chaos.

Other notable disruptions were adverse weather conditions in Switzerland and Norway on 28 June, which caused massive flooding at Geneva airport, as well as air traffic control issues in Norway, which affected multiple European airlines.

Over in the US, the WestJet mechanics strike from 28 to 30 June led to 47% of flights disrupted, which is the worst travel day in North America after the global CrowdStrike outage.

Worst day for flight disruptions

The CrowdStrike outage is this summer’s biggest disruption cause in both the US and the EU, making the day of the outage, 19 July, this year’s most disrupted day by far. In the US, 63% of passengers had a disrupted flight, while in Europe, 55% were affected.

Worst departure and destination

We also took a look at the on-time performances of flight destinations, and found that the worst overall departure city this summer was Kefalonia, Greece, where only 36% of passengers were on time. The worst destination on the other hand was Mauritius, where only 34% were on time.

12.8M passengers eligible for compensation

This summer was one of the most challenging travel seasons in recent memory, with unprecedented disruptions affecting millions of passengers worldwide. So it’s no surprise that a whopping 12.8 million passengers are eligible for flight disruption compensation this summer alone.

For the lowdown on the summer when it comes to disrupted flights, country by country, read our 2024 summer disruption report in full