Travelers across Europe are facing a fresh wave of disruption as severe winter weather, de icing backlogs and knock on operational issues trigger widespread delays and cancellations across several key aviation markets. Data compiled from flight tracking and passenger rights analysts show that in the latest incident alone some 1,689 flights have been delayed and 59 cancelled across multiple countries, with the Netherlands, Germany and Italy particularly affected. Major carriers including KLM, easyJet and British Airways are struggling to keep their networks running smoothly, and the impact is rippling through major hubs such as Munich, London, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and other cities as crews, aircraft and passengers are pushed out of position.
How the Latest Wave of Disruption Unfolded Across Europe
The latest bout of travel chaos is the culmination of several concurrent pressures on Europe’s air transport system. Heavy snow, freezing rain and high winds in northern and central Europe have repeatedly forced airports to slow or temporarily suspend operations while runways are cleared and aircraft de iced. German airports including Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich and Düsseldorf have all reported substantial disruption in early February after freezing rain made safe operations impossible for several hours, prompting more than a hundred cancellations and hundreds of delays in Germany alone.
At the same time, Amsterdam Schiphol has endured one of its most difficult winter periods in recent memory. Since early January, the Dutch hub has had to cancel thousands of flights as a combination of snow, ice and strong winds limited runway capacity and overwhelmed its de icing resources. Industry data indicate that more than 3,200 flights were scrapped in the first days of January after de icing backlogs became critical and KLM warned that it was running low on de icing fluid, forcing additional cuts to its schedule to prioritize safety.
These localized weather shocks have combined with structural strains that have been building over several months. Flight disruption reports from late 2025 show that Europe’s big hubs have been operating with very thin margins, frequently recording days where more than 1,000 flights were delayed and scores cancelled across London, Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam. On some days near the end of 2025 almost 3,000 flights were delayed or cancelled across the continent as carriers like British Airways, KLM, Lufthansa and others wrestled with a mix of capacity constraints and air traffic management bottlenecks. The latest figures, with 1,689 delays and 59 cancellations, slot into this broader pattern of repeated multi country disruption.
Key Airports and Routes Under Pressure
The brunt of the current disturbance is being felt at some of Europe’s busiest hubs. In Germany, Munich and Frankfurt have once again emerged as flashpoints whenever winter weather collides with already tight schedules. Recent data show that on a single day in late November 2025, 235 flights were cancelled and more than 2,200 delayed across Europe, with Munich and Frankfurt posting some of the highest disruption rates. Average delays exceeded a quarter of all departures as snow removal and de icing had to be prioritized over on time performance.
In the Netherlands, Amsterdam Schiphol sits at the heart of KLM’s global network and any slowdown there rapidly cascades across Europe and long haul sectors. During major snow events, Schiphol has routinely seen hundreds of cancellations per day, and the knock on effect has reached destinations across the UK, Scandinavia, central Europe and the Mediterranean. Routes linking Amsterdam with London, Copenhagen and German business centers are particularly vulnerable because they depend on short turnarounds and repeated daily frequencies that leave little slack when early morning waves are disrupted.
The United Kingdom is not immune either. London Heathrow and London Gatwick consistently rank among Europe’s most delay prone major airports. During recent peak periods, Heathrow has recorded tens of thousands of delayed flights over a season and consistently high cancellation volumes. When partner hubs such as Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Munich slow down, London’s own tightly regulated runway system has minimal spare capacity to absorb misaligned arrivals, resulting in reactionary delays on short haul services operated by British Airways and easyJet.
Farther south, Italian airports have also been feeling the pressure. While the current disruption is more concentrated in northern Europe, the interconnected nature of airline networks means Italian gateways such as Milan Malpensa, Rome Fiumicino and Venice Marco Polo have been affected by incoming aircraft arriving late from weather hit airports in Germany and the Netherlands. This reduces turnaround times and pushes delays deeper into the daily schedule, particularly on intra European services which rely on quick rotations.
Airlines Most Affected: KLM, easyJet, British Airways and Partners
Among the carriers hardest hit, KLM has been grappling with particularly acute operational challenges at its Amsterdam base. The airline has acknowledged that prolonged winter conditions have strained its de icing resources and ground handling capacity, causing it to pare back operations and cancel a significant number of flights to keep the remainder of its schedule more manageable. Since KLM feeds a vast portion of northern Europe short haul traffic through Schiphol, even a modest schedule reduction translates into substantial disruption for connecting travelers.
British Airways, operating from a slot constrained Heathrow, is facing a different flavor of difficulty. Its network is extremely dependent on punctual arrival banks that feed long haul departures to North America, Africa and Asia. When short haul feeders from cities like Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Munich and Copenhagen are delayed, missed connections become inevitable. To protect long haul operations, BA sometimes opts to cancel or consolidate short haul services, which contributes to cancellation totals and exacerbates crowding in London’s terminals as passengers seek alternative routings.
EasyJet, one of Europe’s largest low cost carriers, has also featured prominently in recent delay and cancellation statistics. With extensive operations at airports such as Berlin, Amsterdam, Geneva and Milan, the airline has been squarely in the path of this winter’s volatile conditions. Reports from Germany’s recent freezing rain event show easyJet topping cancellation tallies there, while also absorbing heavy delays as crews and aircraft became misaligned. The carrier’s point to point business model gives it some flexibility to drop individual rotations, but that still leaves thousands of passengers needing rebooking or refunds when weather or ground handling bottlenecks strike.
Other European and regional airlines, including Lufthansa, Air France, Iberia, Swiss and various regional affiliates, have also been drawn into the disruption. Many of these carriers share codeshare and alliance links, meaning that a cancellation by one airline can affect passengers ticketed on another. This intertwining of networks magnifies the visible impact of any large scale operational disturbance and complicates recovery efforts once conditions begin to normalize.
Why Europe’s Aviation Network Is So Vulnerable in Winter
Europe’s tightly interconnected aviation system is particularly prone to cascading problems when severe weather or technical issues hit more than one hub at a time. Many major airports operate near their maximum runway and terminal capacity during peak hours, which means there is little room to catch up once early morning departures are delayed. Aircraft and crew duty time rules further restrict how long operators can stretch their assets to recover lost minutes, so a short weather related ground stop can rapidly turn into a day long pattern of rolling delays.
Winter brings several specific hazards. Snow and freezing rain require de icing of aircraft and clearing of runways, reducing the number of movements airports can safely handle per hour. At Amsterdam Schiphol, for example, de icing infrastructure is designed to cope with a certain throughput, but when heavy snow coincides with subzero temperatures and strong winds, each aircraft can take considerably longer to prepare. Industry analyses of recent events in the Netherlands highlight how limited de icing capacity, combined with a shortage of de icing fluid, can force airports and airlines to slow operations to a crawl and cancel flights preemptively to prevent even greater gridlock.
Similar vulnerabilities exist in Germany, where airports like Munich and Frankfurt must carefully balance runway clearing, stand availability, and de icing pad operations. During recent storms, German hubs have been pushed to cancel a higher proportion of flights precisely to protect safety margins and avoid the risk of aircraft becoming stranded on icy taxiways. As a result, travelers may see seemingly modest snowfall result in extensive cancellations because airports and airlines are choosing to prioritize predictability and safety over attempting to maintain full schedules at any cost.
Passenger Rights and What Travelers Can Expect
For passengers caught up in the current chaos, understanding rights under European air passenger legislation is critical. Under the continent’s prevailing framework, when a flight is cancelled passengers are entitled to a choice between rerouting at the earliest opportunity or receiving a refund for the unused portion of their ticket. Airlines must also provide care in the form of meals, refreshments and, when necessary, hotel accommodation during extended waits, regardless of whether the disruption was the airline’s fault or caused by extraordinary circumstances such as extreme weather.
Compensation, however, is treated differently. When delays or cancellations are the result of extraordinary circumstances that could not reasonably have been avoided, such as severe storms or freezing rain, airlines are generally not obliged to pay financial compensation on top of refunds or rerouting. Travel insurance may bridge part of this gap for some passengers by covering additional costs such as replacement flights, ground transport, or extra nights in hotels, but coverage varies widely between policies and travelers are advised to keep detailed records of expenses and all documentation from airlines.
Specialist passenger rights organizations report that many travelers remain unaware of their entitlements, particularly when delays rather than outright cancellations occur. In practice, if a delay extends beyond certain thresholds, airlines must offer care and sometimes refunds or rerouting even if the original flight is not formally cancelled. The precise thresholds depend on flight distance and delay length, but the principle holds that long delays trigger obligations, especially when passengers are left waiting at the airport for extended periods without clear information.
How Airlines and Airports Are Trying to Recover
Once weather conditions improve, the focus for airlines and airports shifts to restoring normal schedules as quickly as possible. This recovery phase can take several days, because aircraft and crews may be scattered across the network and maintenance windows may have been missed during the peak disruption. In recent winter events, operators have been forced to run reduced schedules even after snow and ice cleared simply to give themselves room to reposition aircraft and crews and to work through the backlog of stranded passengers.
At hubs such as Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Munich, recovery is also constrained by strict noise and night flight regulations. Curfews and slot restrictions can prevent airlines from operating late night wave after late night wave of additional flights to clear the backlog. Instead, carriers must prioritize certain routes and customers, often focusing on long haul connections and high demand trunk routes while less critical or less profitable services remain suspended longer.
Airports and airlines have signaled that they are investing in improved resilience, but many of the planned measures will take time to come online. In Germany, for instance, Munich Airport has been working on remote de icing pads intended to accelerate departures in future winters. Across Europe, investments in more efficient ground handling equipment, better staff rostering and enhanced real time data sharing between airlines, airports and air traffic control are seen as essential steps. Until those investments are fully realized, travelers can expect winter to remain a fragile season for European aviation.
Practical Advice for Travelers Navigating the Chaos
For travelers planning to fly to or within Europe during this turbulent period, preparation and flexibility are essential. Experts in corporate mobility and passenger rights consistently recommend building extra buffer time into itineraries, particularly when connecting between flights or attending time sensitive meetings. Whenever possible, travelers should consider early morning departures, which are less exposed to the cumulative effect of delays, and avoid last flights of the day on critical legs, since those are often the first to be cancelled when crew duty limits are reached.
Rail can be a viable backup on shorter routes, especially in countries with robust high speed networks such as Germany, France and the Netherlands. During previous disruption spikes, German rail operator Deutsche Bahn has added extra high speed capacity to help absorb stranded air passengers on domestic routes under roughly 400 kilometers. While trains can themselves be affected by winter weather, they typically offer more reliable service during moderate conditions and allow travelers to bypass congested airports entirely.
Above all, passengers should stay closely connected to their airline’s communication channels in the days and hours leading up to departure. Mobile apps and text alerts now provide the most timely information on schedule changes, rebookings and gate allocations. Given how quickly conditions can change at hubs such as Amsterdam, Munich, London and Copenhagen, relying solely on static printed boarding passes or third party booking confirmations can leave passengers unaware of last minute adjustments. By monitoring updates and acting quickly when rebooking windows open, travelers stand a better chance of minimizing the personal impact of Europe’s latest bout of aviation turmoil.