When you book a flight, it is not only the airline and the price that matter, but the airport too – especially if you are changing planes. At some airports half of all flights are late; at others, not even one in ten. Below we summarise what the latest punctuality data shows and what it means for your rights.
What is OTP, and why does it matter?
OTP (on-time performance) is the aviation industry’s punctuality measure: the percentage of flights that departed or arrived no more than 15 minutes after schedule. An OTP of 80% therefore means that one flight in five was more than 15 minutes late.
It is important to know that the 15-minute OTP threshold and the EU regulation’s 3-hour compensation threshold are not the same thing. An airport can be ‘unpunctual’ by OTP while the share of delays over 3 hours there is still only 1–2%. For compensation, it is the latter that counts.
Where does the data come from?
The most widely used sources are Cirium’s annual On-Time Performance Review and OAG’s Punctuality League; in Europe, Eurocontrol publishes monthly delay statistics, and in the United States the Department of Transportation (DOT) does. Their methods differ (departures vs. arrivals, which flights are counted), so the rankings shift from year to year and from source to source.
The world’s least punctual major airports
Based on Cirium’s 2024 and 2025 reports, these major international hubs recorded the lowest departure punctuality (share of flights departing on time):
- Lisbon (LIS) – around 60%; chronic capacity shortage, a single runway
- Amsterdam Schiphol (AMS) – 60–65%; staff shortages and capacity limits since 2022
- London Gatwick (LGW) – 60–65%; the world’s busiest single-runway airport
- Paris CDG (CDG) – around 65%; ATC strikes
- Frankfurt (FRA) – 65–68%
- Istanbul (IST) – 68–70%
- Dublin (DUB) – 68–70%; passenger cap
- Toronto Pearson (YYZ) – around 65%
- Seoul Incheon (ICN) and Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) – the weakest in Asia
At the other end of the scale are the Middle East (Riyadh, Jeddah), Japan (Haneda) and the major Latin American airports (Panama, Bogotá), with punctuality above 85–90%.
Europe: where are flights most delayed?
According to Eurocontrol’s summer 2025 data, the average arrival delay of European flights was over 20 minutes, and one flight in three was more than 15 minutes late. The most problematic areas:
- London (Gatwick, Luton, Stansted) – congested UK airspace and NATS capacity shortages
- Lisbon and Porto – chronic understaffing in Portuguese ATC
- Amsterdam – airport capacity limits
- Frankfurt and Munich – the 2024 wave of strikes, winter weather
- Greek and Italian islands in summer – seasonal overload
- Marseille, Nice, Paris – French ATC strikes and ‘Marseille airspace’ as a European bottleneck
Budapest (BUD), for example, sits mid-table in Eurocontrol’s statistics: delays there come mainly from low-cost airlines’ rotation problems (knock-on delays), not from airport capacity – which matters legally, because a knock-on delay is not an extraordinary circumstance, so compensation is due.
Why are flights delayed?
The causes of delays fall into two groups, and for compensation this split is decisive:
Within the airline’s responsibility (compensation due): technical faults, staff shortages, the late arrival of the previous flight, turnaround times that are too tight, the airline’s own strikes, late catering or cleaning.
External, extraordinary circumstances (no compensation, but care is due): weather, air traffic control strikes or capacity limits, airport closures, security incidents, bird strikes.
According to Eurocontrol data, the biggest source of delays in Europe is airlines’ own operations (‘reactionary delay’ – the aircraft arrives late from its previous flight), which accounts for every second delay. ATC capacity comes second and weather third.
What can you do to avoid delays?
- Choose a morning flight. The first rotation of the day is the most punctual; delays build up towards the evening.
- Leave enough time for connections – at major hubs (Frankfurt, CDG, Istanbul, Dubai) at least 90 minutes – and if possible buy the whole journey on one booking, so that EU261 protects your connection.
- Avoid strike days – French and Italian ATC strikes are announced in advance (see our strike calendar).
- Take out travel insurance for separately booked connections.
And if your flight is delayed anyway?
An unpunctual airport does not let the airline off the hook. If your flight arrived at least 3 hours late at its destination and the cause was within the airline’s control, €250–€600 in compensation is due – check with the calculator.
Sources: Cirium On-Time Performance Review 2024, 2025; OAG Punctuality League 2025; Eurocontrol Network Operations Report 2025. The data refers to major international airports; rankings may differ between sources.