" 2018 is expected to be a record year for air traffic, with some 11 million flights scheduled within the European Union. Our current air traffic system is struggling to cope with the constant increase in traffic and other disruptions, which on average affect 50,000 passengers face delays of up to 2 hours every day at Europe's airports "says the press release published by the European institution, which calls for the acceleration of a new airspace harmonisation plan common.
In the Commission's view, there is therefore an urgent need for upgrading, at a time when there is a growing number of increase in delays in the air traffic of the 28 Member States of the European Union, as well as Norway and Switzerland. Last year, Eurocontrol calculated that 5.3% of flights were affected by delays: up from 4.8% in 2016. The average delay was 16.5 minutes per delayed flight.
And unfortunately, Eurocontrol is predicting that 2018 will be even worse than 2017, estimating that the average length of a delay is likely to be multiplied by four. According to statistics for the first six months, 7.9 % of flights in the European Union were delayed. The current estimate for 2018 is 15 million minutes of delay, or 1.35 minutes per flight. Unfortunately, this estimate has already been exceeded in the first six months, with delays per flight already reaching 1.49 minutes per flight. The average delay per flight during the same period from January to June 2017 was just 0.64 minutes per flight.
If we look at the performance of airports studied by the American website FlightStats, In June alone, most hubs saw more than 35% of flights delayed at departure. Europe's best performers according to FlightStats are Istanbul with 19.1% of departing flights more than 15 minutes late, followed by Helsinki (just over 21%), Moscow Domodedovo (22,74%), London Heathrow (24.81%) - a real surprise for Europe's largest airport - and Madrid (28,83%).
Amsterdam, London Heathrow, Munich and Zurich have more than 35% of their flights delayed at departure, while Paris, Brussels, Rome and Barcelona have more than 40%. Again according to the FlightStats website, the following flights were delayed FrankfurtWarsaw and Lisbon hold the record for delays, with more than half of all flights not departing on time! Overall, the average delay percentage in Europe in June was 35.49%.
