236 million US passengers had their flight delayed or canceled in 2024

If you’ve traveled through a US airport this year, you’ve likely encountered some turbulence — and not just in the air. Our data shows that last year, a total of 1 billion passengers took off from US airports, with almost 1 in 4 experiencing a flight delay or cancellation.

While the entire year saw significant challenges, July was an especially bad month for disruptions. Remember Crowdstrike? The IT outage grounded a significant number of flights, creating airport chaos not just all over the country, but across the globe too.

But there's a silver lining. Of the US travelers who had a flight disruption, about 780,000 are entitled to compensation under international regulations. They could get up to $650 in compensation under European laws, for example.

Let's get into this year's findings...

Disruptions over time

Here's the good news: the proportion of disrupted flights has been decreasing since 2022. It was 25% back then, compared to 23% last year.

But because there are more flights and more passengers each year, the absolute number of passengers who had a delayed or canceled flight was highest this year: 236 million passengers.

Long delays are creeping up. Back in 2022, 11.8 million passengers were delayed over 3 hours. Last year that was up to 15.7 million. But cancellations are improving, down from 22 million passengers in 2022 to 14.4 million last year.

Disruptions by month

Travel disruptions peaked as flight traffic reached it's highest point. 96.6 million passengers flew from a US airport in July, and the month saw the highest proportion of disrupted flights too: 33%. That's 31.6 million passengers who's journey was disrupted.

July was of course, when the Crowdstrike outage occurred. In fact, the day of the outage, July 19th, was the most disrupted day of the year. 64% of US passengers experienced a delay or cancellation that day, for a total of 2 million affected.

Most disrupted departure airports

So, which airports experienced the most disruptions in 2024?

The busiest airport in the US is Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson — 53.5 million passengers passed through in 2024 alone. Around 22% of them with delay or cancellation en route.

However, it’s not the most disrupted airport — that dubious destination goes to Aspen Airport, where 35% of flights across the year were delayed or canceled. It’s a relatively small airport that handled just 420,000 passengers last year. And given it's located at a high elevation in a mountain valley, delays due to weather and unfavourable conditions are to be expected.

As for the most punctual airport, that honor goes to Hilo International Airport, where only 12% of flights were delayed or canceled last year. That means that of the 739,000 passengers, just 86,500 experienced a flight delay.

Busiest and most punctual routes

Where did everyone go? The US's busiest flight route is between New York's John F. Kennedy Airport and London Heathrow in the UK. Over 1.5 million passengers flew across the pond 2024, with 21% experiencing a delay or cancellation.

The route to avoid was Los Angeles to Frankfurt Am Main in Germany. This was an incredibly disrupted route, with 60%, or over 90,000 passengers, finding their flight delayed or canceled.

But good news when you're hopping across the Pacific: 2024's most punctual US route was Honolulu Airport to Tokyo Narita Airport in Japan. Just 7% of the 481,000 passengers had a flight disruption, which means it’s one of the most relaxed routes you could fly.

Getting compensation for passengers

With all of these flight disruptions, it’s only right that passengers should be properly compensated for all the lost time and stress. Globally, around 38 million passengers were owed compensation in 2024.

And while the US doesn’t have strong passenger rights laws, passengers flying internationally are often protected by the laws in their destination.

We calculated that 780,000 US passengers were eligible for compensation for their delayed or canceled flights last year.

Flying to or from the US and curious if your flight is protected under international laws? Check our guide so that you can be ready the next time you experience a disruption.