A new global punctuality report released this week paints a stark picture of air travel in 2025, placing European carriers Ryanair, easyJet and Air France among the airlines with the highest delay rates worldwide.

The findings, based on tens of millions of flights tracked between January and November 2025, come just as airports across Europe and North America grapple with intense holiday traffic and a wave of weather, staffing and air traffic control constraints that are pushing schedules to breaking point.

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Global report highlights worst delay rates of 2025

The latest analysis from flight tracking platform Flighty, published in December 2025, identifies Ryanair, easyJet and Air France as the international airlines with the highest share of delayed flights this year.

Each of the three carriers saw 29 percent of their services arrive at least 15 minutes behind schedule, placing them at the top of the global ranking for delays and ahead of the worst performing United States carriers included in the study.

According to the report, which examined more than 22 million flights worldwide, the industry benchmark for delays of 15 minutes or more is around 22 percent. By that measure, Ryanair, easyJet and Air France are all significantly underperforming the global norm.

They also sit above the most delayed US airline, ultra low cost Frontier, which recorded a 28 percent delay rate, followed by JetBlue and Southwest at 25 percent and American and Alaska in the mid twenties.

While the ranking focuses on the proportion of late arrivals rather than absolute numbers, the scale of operations at these European carriers magnifies the impact.

Ryanair alone has operated close to a million flights in recent years, meaning that even a modest percentage shift in punctuality translates into hundreds of thousands of disrupted journeys across the airline’s pan-European network.

European carriers under pressure as ATC delays surge

The report’s findings are reinforced by wider industry data pointing to persistent strain in European air traffic management. A separate analysis released on 9 December 2025 by the International Air Transport Association concluded that air traffic control related delays in Europe have more than doubled over the past decade, even though flight numbers have increased by less than 7 percent during the same period.

Between 2015 and the end of 2024, air traffic flow management delays in Europe rose 114 percent, with staffing shortages and capacity shortfalls in key control centers identified as the main drivers.

The analysis singled out the air navigation service providers in France and Germany as responsible for more than half of all air traffic control delay minutes, underscoring why carriers heavily exposed to these airspaces such as Air France, Ryanair and easyJet are particularly vulnerable.

Although weather related disruption is excluded from the IATA figures, the report notes that the bulk of delays now stem from structural constraints in the air traffic system rather than isolated events.

In 2024 alone, flights in European airspace accumulated more than 30 million minutes of air traffic control delay, with almost 40 percent of that occurring during the high summer months of July and August. Early data for 2025 suggests only a marginal improvement on what the association describes as an already difficult baseline.

From data to disruption: what passengers are experiencing now

For travelers, the statistical picture is playing out in real time during the current peak holiday period. Airports in France, Italy and Spain have repeatedly reported clusters of delays and cancellations in December, often concentrated on days affected by local industrial action or storm systems moving across Western Europe.

In Italy earlier this month, a single day of disruption at Rome, Milan and Venice saw more than 200 departures delayed or cancelled, many of them operated by Ryanair, Air France and other major European brands.

At the network level, the result is a system operating close to capacity, where even minor perturbations cascade quickly. When French air traffic controllers walk out, for instance, flights that would normally overfly the country must be rerouted, clogging alternative corridors and knocking on to airports in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and beyond. Budget carriers with high aircraft utilization and tight turnarounds, such as Ryanair and easyJet, are especially exposed to such ripples.

In practical terms, passengers are seeing a combination of extended boarding and taxi times, late inbound aircraft, missed slots and, in some cases, tight connections evaporating as banks of flights depart out of sequence. The Flighty report estimates that, globally, 2025 travelers lost some 3.9 million hours between scheduled and actual arrival times.

Of that, around 1.4 million hours were spent waiting for aircraft to reach a gate or take off from congested runways and taxiways, illustrating how much of the delay burden now falls at the very end or beginning of journeys rather than en route.

Systemic scheduling and capacity strain behind the numbers

Aviation analysts say the clustering of high delay rates among large European carriers is less a reflection of individual airline mismanagement and more a symptom of systemic constraints across the region’s infrastructure.

Following the pandemic, airlines rebuilt their networks at speed to meet resurgent demand, but investment in air traffic control staffing, airport capacity and ground handling has lagged in several markets.

Network planners have also pushed utilization hard, particularly at low cost carriers. Aircraft are often scheduled for multiple short sectors per day with minimal buffer between flights, a model that keeps seat costs low but leaves little margin to absorb disruption.

Once an early sector falls behind, the delay tends to propagate across the aircraft’s rotations, which helps explain why entire days of schedules can become ragged during busy periods.

At legacy airlines such as Air France, the pressures are slightly different but no less acute. Complex hub operations at congested airports like Paris Charles de Gaulle depend on precise coordination of inbound and outbound waves of flights.

When air traffic control holds or gate shortages disrupt that rhythm, connection times can quickly become insufficient, and airlines are forced to hold departures for transferring passengers or rebook them, lengthening knock-on delays.

Air traffic management reform in Europe has long been touted as a solution, with initiatives under the Single European Sky framework designed to consolidate control centers and streamline routes.

Progress has been slow, however, and industry bodies argue that without more decisive action, airlines will continue to plan around inefficiencies, effectively baking extra time and cost into their schedules at the expense of punctuality.

Regional contrasts: Europe versus the United States and beyond

The global data also highlights meaningful differences between delay dynamics in Europe and those in the United States. While several US carriers feature prominently in the Flighty ranking of 2025’s most delayed airlines, none match the 29 percent delay rate recorded by Ryanair, easyJet and Air France. Frontier, the worst performing American carrier in the report, sits one percentage point lower.

Part of the explanation lies in the structure of US airspace and airport capacity. Though major hubs such as Newark and Chicago are notorious for congestion and weather related turmoil, the Federal Aviation Administration operates a more centralized air traffic management system than Europe’s patchwork of national providers. That can make it easier to reflow traffic around localized disruptions, even if staffing challenges within the system remain significant.

By contrast, European carriers must navigate multiple regulatory regimes and overlapping national interests, particularly when industrial disputes arise. A stoppage by French controllers, for example, often obliges airlines to cancel or reroute flights that neither depart from nor arrive in France but simply transit its airspace.

The cumulative effect is that carriers with densely woven intra-European networks, such as Ryanair and easyJet, accumulate disproportionate delay exposure compared with long haul focused airlines that operate fewer daily sectors.

Outside the North Atlantic markets, other regions face their own challenges. Some Latin American and Asian airlines have reported rising delay rates driven by severe weather events and rapid demand growth outpacing infrastructure investment.

However, at a global level, it is the combination of European structural constraints and the scale of operators like Ryanair that is currently generating the most acute punctuality problems.

Holiday travel 2025: what this means for current trips

For travelers flying during the December and early January peak, the 2025 data serves as both warning and context. The elevated delay rates recorded for Ryanair, easyJet and Air France are not simply historical curiosities; they mirror the real time congestion visible on departure boards across major hubs this week.

Industry officials say that while airlines have added some slack to schedules compared with the chaotic summer of 2022, demand has also grown and weather volatility appears to be intensifying.

Travel agents report that passengers are increasingly building self-imposed buffers into their itineraries. That includes opting for earlier flights on the day of important events, avoiding tight self connections booked across multiple tickets, and allowing extra time when transiting known congestion hotspots in Europe.

Some corporate travel policies have been updated to restrict the use of last departure flights for critical business engagements, reflecting a more conservative posture toward punctuality risk.

At the same time, consumer advocacy groups emphasize that passengers retain significant rights under European Union regulations when flights are heavily delayed or cancelled for reasons within an airline’s control.

In practice, though, the distinction between controllable and uncontrollable causes can be opaque, and airlines often point to air traffic control or adverse weather to limit their compensation exposure.

The underlying message from regulators is that better systemic planning and investment are required if legal frameworks are to keep pace with the realities on the ground.

How airlines and regulators are responding

Airlines named among the worst performers in punctuality rankings typically point to the external environment rather than internal shortcomings. Ryanair and easyJet have long argued that their operations suffer disproportionately from air traffic control strikes and staffing constraints in continental Europe, particularly in France.

Air France, for its part, has highlighted its efforts to adjust schedules during known bottleneck periods and to invest in digital tools that improve disruption management and rebooking.

There are signs that regulators are taking the issue more seriously. European authorities have renewed calls for air navigation service providers to accelerate recruitment and training to address controller shortages that date back to hiring freezes during and immediately after the pandemic. Some member states are also exploring targeted investments in airport infrastructure to relieve chronic bottlenecks at busy hubs.

Industry trade groups warn, however, that solutions will take time to bear fruit. Training a new air traffic controller can take several years, and complex capital projects at airports often face local opposition and planning hurdles.

In the interim, airlines may have little choice but to temper growth ambitions, build longer scheduled journey times into their timetables, or use more conservative block times to improve their on paper performance, even if passengers still feel that flights are running late compared with previous decades.

FAQ

Q1: Why are Ryanair, easyJet and Air France showing some of the highest delay rates in 2025?
They operate dense European networks heavily exposed to congested airspace, air traffic control bottlenecks and staff shortages, particularly in France and Germany, while running tight schedules that leave little room to absorb disruption.

Q2: What does a 29 percent delay rate actually mean for passengers?
It means that roughly three out of every ten flights on those airlines arrived at least 15 minutes later than scheduled in 2025, increasing the likelihood of missed connections, late arrivals and schedule changes compared with more punctual carriers.

Q3: Are these delays mostly the airlines’ fault or due to air traffic control and weather?
The data suggests a mix of factors, but industry analyses show that structural air traffic control capacity and staffing issues in Europe, combined with occasional strikes and weather events, are responsible for a large share of delay minutes.

Q4: How does Europe’s delay problem compare with the United States?
Several US airlines also have high delay rates, but the worst performing American carrier in the 2025 global report has a slightly lower share of late flights than Ryanair, easyJet and Air France, reflecting differences in airspace management and network structures.

Q5: Are delays worse during specific times of year?
Yes, delay minutes tend to spike in peak travel seasons such as the northern hemisphere summer and the late December holiday period, when traffic levels are highest and weather disruptions are more common.

Q6: What can travelers do to reduce their risk of serious disruption?
Travel experts recommend choosing earlier flights in the day, allowing generous connection times, avoiding unnecessary tight self connections across separate tickets and monitoring flight status closely in the 24 hours before departure.

Q7: Do passengers have a right to compensation for these delays?
In Europe, regulations grant compensation and assistance for many long delays and cancellations that are within the airline’s control, but compensation is typically not owed when delays are caused by extraordinary circumstances such as severe weather or certain air traffic control issues.

Q8: Are airlines changing their schedules in response to the 2025 delay data?
Some carriers are gradually padding block times, restructuring banked connections at hubs and adding additional spare aircraft and crews, but these adjustments can be limited by aircraft availability and commercial pressures.

Q9: Is it safer to avoid flying with airlines that have high delay rates?
Punctuality rankings relate to timeliness rather than safety, and all major carriers in Europe and North America operate under strict safety oversight; choosing a more punctual airline can reduce inconvenience but does not equate to a safety decision.

Q10: Could the delay situation improve in the next few years?
Improvements are possible if investments in air traffic control staffing, digital tools and airport capacity proceed as planned, but with demand continuing to grow, most experts expect punctuality to remain a challenge unless structural reforms accelerate.