Roughly 1.19 billion travelers passed through the top 40 airports in Europe in 2023, dealing with issues including bad weather and strikes affecting air traffic control. The data that was recently made public by Eurocontrol provides insight into how airports and airlines are performing in the face of the challenges of guaranteeing the punctual arrival and departure of ten million flights while negotiating disruptions like strikes, more extreme weather, and the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Throughout the first half of the year, European flights were severely hampered by air traffic control strikes in France and summer weather events. Hungary had frequent restrictions as a result of increased traffic over neighboring countries caused by the prolonged shutdown of Ukraine’s airspace. ATC strikes caused four times as many delays in 2023 as they did in 2022, mostly affecting French airspace. With an average delay of 17.7 minutes due to all factors, it was comparable to 2022 but noticeably longer than in 2019. About 65% of planes left on time, despite 71% arriving on schedule.

Nearly two-thirds of en route aircraft delays were attributed to France and Germany, with personnel and capacity constraints compounding disruptions from strikes, bad weather, and system modifications. Only Vueling and Norwegian showed improvements over 2019; Iberia, Widerøe, Vueling, and Norwegian were the airlines with arrival punctuality ratings above 80%.

Turkish carriers, Pegasus, and TAP were some of the carriers with the lowest rates of arrival punctuality. Oslo, Vienna, and Athens had the highest departure punctuality rates, while all 20 airports in Eurocontrol’s statistics reported lower than 2019 numbers.

Istanbul Airport broke its own traffic record by managing the most flights in a single day. Then came London Heathrow and Amsterdam, all of which saw an increase in traffic over 2022. Even while the number of passengers increased to 1.19 billion, over 2022 estimates, the total still falls short of pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels. This rise is explained by the fact that newer airplane types have more seats available, which are being occupied effectively.

According to data from Eurocontrol, the majority of flights in 2023—21,660 on average—were within Europe, whereas intercontinental flights accounted for 5,414 on average. The most sought-after destinations were the Middle East, North America, North Africa, and Asia, with flights to the Asia/Pacific area growing at the fastest rate—33%—in comparison to 2022.