Traffic in summer 2022 was significantly greater than in 2021; this resulted in unacceptably high delays and cancellations, as many parts of the industry were not able to scale up operations to accommodate the increase in demand.
ANS performance in Europe also degraded in 2022, contributing to the poor overall performance. Average en-route ATFM delay rose to a similar level as in the capacity crisis years of 2018/19, partly because of numerous ATM system upgrades, but also because not all ANSPs were able to deploy sufficient capacity to handle the demand.