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Flight disruption has become a feature of post-pandemic travel in the UK, according to new data which illustrates how the aviation industry has struggled to deliver consistent performance since mass travel restarted.
Around 32 per cent of flights departing from UK airports were cancelled or delayed in the first five months of the year, according to Financial Times analysis of figures from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
The level was higher than in the two years leading up to the coronavirus pandemic, where it at stood at 25 per cent and 22 per cent in 2018 and 2019, respectively.
The figures cover the performance of flights from 26 airports that the aviation sector regulator tracks.
The scale of the problem has not been as significant as last summer, when parts of the industry buckled owing to staff shortages and more than 50 per cent of flights were cancelled or delayed.
But the data instead shows that heightened disruption — defined as a flight cancelled or delayed by over 16 minutes — has become a near constant theme of the industry’s recovery.
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The trend is apparent at terminals across the country. Delays and cancellations were higher in the first five months of 2022 and 2023 than in 2019 at each of the UK’s eight largest airports.
Moreover, delays have persisted despite departures not yet rebounding to 2019 levels. In May, CAA data captured 78,149 scheduled flights departing UK airports. In the same period of 2019, the figure was 90,452.
Last year, airlines and airports suffered from staffing problems as the industry struggled to get back on its feet after Covid-era travel restrictions were lifted.
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The result was significant disruption, including tens of thousands of flight cancellations and passenger caps imposed by airports as they wrestled back control of their operations.
Shortages of personnel at airlines and airports have largely been fixed, but instead the industry has this year suffered from a new series of problems, many beyond its control.
Aviation executives said air traffic control delays have been the biggest problem. A fifth of European airspace has been closed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, creating congestion which ripples across the skies as far as western Europe.
The UK is not alone. Air traffic control agencies have suffered from staff shortages elsewhere in Europe, while repeated controller strikes, particularly in France, have piled on further pressure. Bad weather has also added to flight backlogs.
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AirlinesUK, a sector body which represents carriers, said airlines and airports have made “huge efforts since the pandemic to build resilience into operations”. It said the industry was doing “everything within our power” to minimise disruption, much of which was outside its control.
“I think the environment that we are operating in Europe is very difficult,” Luis Gallego, chief executive of British Airways owner IAG, said in a recent earnings call.
Carl Gillen, senior vice-president of ground operations at Norwegian Airlines, which flies into London’s Gatwick airport, said while most companies had plugged their staffing gaps, the industry was still suffering from gaps in some areas, including airport bus drivers and handling agents.
“It’s very hard to attract people back into the aviation industry . . . I don’t think it’ll be fixed before next summer, to be honest,” he added.
