Taking a plane in Paris without suffering delays or cancellations is becoming more and more of a challenge, analyses Flightright, one of Europe's leading providers of compensation for passengers affected by air travel disruptions. More than 123,000 flights were delayed or cancelled from the three airports serving the capital in 2025, i.e. just over one in three.
But according to Flightright, not all hubs in the Paris region are in the same boat when it comes to flight delays or cancellations.
The firm has published a double ranking of Paris airports, distinguishing between delays and cancellations. The two rankings do not overlap, and neither does the fact that Flightright does not distinguish between "good" and "bad" airports. Paris-Charles de GaulleBeauvais and Paris-Orly. On the other hand, the results show different priorities depending on the position each occupies in the French aviation system.
Ranking No. 1 - Delayed flights (delay ≥ 15 minutes on arrival, Paris airports, 2025)
| Flights | Delayed flights | Delays in % | |
| Paris-CDG | 221,790 | 87,743 | 39,56% |
| Paris-Beauvais | 19,823 | 7 430 | 37,48% |
| Paris-Orly | 109,732 | 24,585 | 22,40% |
Paris-Charles de Gaulle accounts for the highest number of delays: almost 4 out of 10 flights arrive after their scheduled time. Paris-Beauvais also has a high frequency of delays, despite more limited traffic. Paris-Orly, on the other hand, is doing well, with a delay rate well below 25%, and consequently lower than its two neighbours.
Ranking n°2 - Cancelled flights (Paris airports, 2025)
| Flights | Cancelled flights | Cancellations in % | |
| Paris-CDG | 221,790 | 2,809 | 0,92% |
| Paris-Beauvais | 19,823 | 76 | 0,38% |
| Paris-Orly | 109,732 | 688 | 0,63% |
Paris-Charles de Gaulle also leads the way in cancellations, with almost 1 % of flights cancelled over the period. Paris-Orly is at an intermediate level, while Paris-Beauvais has the lowest cancellation rate, despite a high exposure to delays.
The result for Beauvais is hardly surprising, given that low-cost airlines are organising themselves on rotations of aircraft on point-to-point routes, where connections play little role. Each flight is an autonomous economic unit: one aircraft, one crew, one round trip, one direct revenue. In this model, a single cancellation can cost more than several hours of cumulative delay. As a result, Beauvais favours delays and only makes decisions as a last resort.
Like Beauvais, Orly relies essentially on point-to-point traffic. Here, delay saves nothing: no connections to preserve, no critical rotations to protect. It is therefore not an adjustment tool, but a local inconvenience, devoid of any operational interest. Beyond a certain threshold, it disorganises crews, confuses the timetable and complicates aircraft repositioning. Cancellation may then be necessary, as a one-off reset. Orly therefore delays little and cancels more readily than Beauvais, without reaching the levels of a hub like CDG.
Flightright believes that the logic is quite different at CDG, a hub where connections are essential.
CDG is characterised by a density of interconnected flights, compressed into narrow time windows. This keeps the system under stress. A single cancellation can disrupt two to five aircraft rotations, immobilise one to three complete crews, derail dozens - sometimes hundreds - of connections, and hit secondary hubs and critical slots in the process. Here, delay is often used as a regulatory variable: postponing a departure preserves the continuity of the network. But when this remedy threatens to worsen the situation, the solution is to cancel the service. The result is that, despite the logic of absorbing delays, CDG leads the three Paris airports in cancellations.
" Behind the figures are choices - and constraints. Paris-Charles de Gaulle uses a network approach and absorbs some of the disruption through delays. Beauvais cancels only as a last resort, while Orly, which is more point-to-point, occupies an intermediate position. France has neither an ultra-decentralised system like Germany, nor an "ultra-hubbed" organisation like the Netherlands. It is a hybrid model, centralised but fragmented. Paris assumes three roles at once and manages air traffic chaos according to the function of each hub "says Imane El Bouanani, Head of Legal Affairs France at Flightright.
