Revealed: The worst destinations for summer flight delays

Antalya in Turkey is worst airport for delayed flights from the UK during summer months More than one in five flights to the holiday hotspot were at least 60 minutes late in summer of 2024 Milan Malpensa airport ranks second, with 19% of flights more than an hour delayed Rhodes, Istanbul and Naples also feature […]

• Antalya in Turkey is worst airport for delayed flights from the UK during summer months
• More than one in five flights to the holiday hotspot were at least 60 minutes late in summer of 2024
• Milan Malpensa airport ranks second, with 19% of flights more than an hour delayed
• Rhodes, Istanbul and Naples also feature in top ten summer lateness ranking

Antalya in Turkey has been revealed as the worst destination for summer flight delays, new research has found.

The study, by marketing specialists JamPrime, analysed the latest data from the Civil Aviation Authority, looking at the top 50 most flown to airports from the UK in the months of June, July and August 2024. It ranked the worst culprits for summer holiday delays based on the percentage of flights to each airport that were delayed by 60 minutes or more.

Antalya in Turkey ranked as the destination where travellers from the UK were most likely to suffer delays. There were 4,008 flights to the airport in southwest Turkey during the summer months last year, making it the 12^th most popular place to fly to from the UK, and 938 were delayed by more than one hour, which equates to 23.4%, the highest figure in the study.

Milan’s Malpensa airport was in second place, with 19.46% of flights being at least one hour late. Out of 1,588 flights to the Italian city, 309 were delayed by more than 60 minutes.

Budapest in Hungary came in third in the summer lateness rankings due to 311 of 1,610 flights to the city from UK airports being late by an hour or more, which equates to 19.32%.

The fourth most delayed destination from UK airports in June, July and August 2024 was Greek airport Rhodes, with 16.03% – 347 out of 2,165 – of flights at least 60 minutes delayed.

Two more Turkish destinations were in fifth and sixth place in the analysis. Dalaman, on the country’s southwestern coast, saw 15.78% of flights from UK airports delayed by at least an hour, while the figure for Istanbul stood at 15%.

The top ten of the summer lateness rankings was completed by Heraklion on the Greek Island of Crete (14.86% of flights late by at least 60 minutes) in seventh place, Naples in Italy (14.6%) in eighth, Guernsey (14.56%) in ninth and Paphos in Cyprus (14.49%) in tenth.

Dublin was the most flown to destination from UK airports during the three month period, with 10,159 flights, and it placed 21^st out of 50 in the lateness ranking, with 1,118 of those, or 11.01%, delayed by an hour or more.

Across all 25 UK airports that were measured, 10.56% of departures were delayed more than an hour. In total there were 266,847 flights departing the airports in the three month period, and 28,185 were more than 60 minutes late.

Commenting on the study, Ben Nicholls, founder of JamPrime, said: “Millions of Brits wait all year to jet off on their summer holidays, but this research shows that they might face frustrating delays, especially when flying to certain destinations.

“The data is based on flights during the summer months of 2024, and July last year saw the global CrowdStrike-related IT outages which significantly impacted airports around the world, so travellers and airlines will be hoping that no such issues occur this year as the summer holidays arrive.”

The study was conducted by leading agency JamPrime, which specialises in marketing and communications for brands, public figures, entrepreneurs and influencers.

Methodology

All data is taken from the Civil Aviation Authority website: https://www.caa.co.uk/data-and-analysis/uk-aviation-market/flight-punctuality/uk-flight-punctuality-statistics/2024/

The punctuality statistics for the months of June, July and August 2024 were combined to discover the total number of flights departing from each UK airport during the three month period. The top 50 most flown to airports from the UK was found based on the total number of flights to each destination. Then each destination airport’s total flights was compared against its number of flights that met the criteria of being more than 60 minutes late. This comparison revealed the percentage of flights that were at least one hour delayed, and the destination airports were ranked based on those figures.