Overall, the first 4 weeks of Summer 2026 vs Summer 2025 show:
- + 1.6% traffic
- +1.2pp arrival punctuality
- -13% air traffic flow management (ATFM) delays.
Week 26 (22-28 June 2026) stats were heavily influenced by a week of higher severe weather incidents:
- 71% arrival punctuality was -5.5pp vs W25 and -0.5pp vs 2025
- 3.67 mins/flight ATFM delay, +29% vs W25 and +5% vs 2025 – split between en-route (3.04 mins) and airport (0.63 mins)
- 53,940 flights delayed by ATFM restrictions (7,706 a day, 22% of all flights).
With traffic over the next month set to continue to grow and Friday traffic peaks of 37.5K+ flights expected starting later this week (W27), adherence by air navigation service providers to their planned Network Operations Plan capacity commitments is critical.
Network hot spots: to date France has generated 29% of en-route delays (of which 10% attributed to Reims, 6% Marseille and 5% Brest area control centres (ACCs), mainly owing to capacity issues, staff shortages and transition issues with 4-FLIGHT, DSNA's new collaborative ATFM system, Spain 21% (of which 12% Barcelona, 3% Sevilla and 5% Madrid ACCs, reflecting capacity, staffing & high traffic growth) and Greece 13% (of which 9% Athens ACC and 4% Makedonia ACC, the result of capacity, staffing and demand related to the Middle East crisis).
Traffic distribution owing to the ongoing Middle East crisis impacts remains unchanged:
- lower air traffic in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Türkiye
- higher air traffic in Albania, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia coupled with continuous traffic growth in South-West Europe.
For the year as a whole:
- en-route ATFM delays are -16.4% despite +0.9% traffic, reflecting strong coordination by the EUROCONTROL Network Manager (NM) and all ANSPs
- 800K minutes of en-route ATFM delay have now been saved thanks to the updated capacity and weather-based operations (CWBO) procedures and related scenarios, which again kicked into action to counter significant bad weather in W26, saving 270K.