Summer 2024 was a very complex and difficult summer. Traffic was up 5% on 2023 and passengers experienced extensive delays, with over a third of flights delayed by more than 15 minutes on arrival.
Air Traffic Management contributed to this, with en-route delays of 4.6 minutes per flight, up 52% on 2023 and the second worst year ever.
The poor performance can be attributed to a combination of factors – a structural lack of capacity by some air navigation service providers (ANSPs) e.g. due to a lack of air traffic controllers, some ANSPs not delivering the capacity originally committed in preparation for the summer, the unexpectedly high traffic growth in some areas, frequent convective weather during the summer and a high volume of flights not adhering to their original flight plan.
The latest European Aviation Trends paper looks in detail at where the problems were and what can be done to improve the performance next year. Beyond 2025, a deeper structural reform is needed to face medium to long term challenges, such as the expected traffic growth and the effects of climate change.
