Flight delays are often part of the travel lifestyle deal but this is getting ridiculous.
Published 7:32 am Monday, August 7, 2023
- Flight delays are often part of the travel lifestyle deal but this is getting ridiculous.
It’s no secret airline travel delays are up and that the problem is getting worse.
Between January, 2019 and February, 2023, U.S. flights were delayed for 5.3 million or more hours, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation statistics.
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That issue should only grow worse for U.S. tourists looking to jet to Europe this summer, after a delay-heavy 2022 travel season.
How bad will it get? If recency is any indicator, it could become a major travel headache for tourists flying to London, Rome, Paris, and other European bourses.
From May 1 to August 1, over 33% of flights from the U.S. to the 50 top Europe airports were at least 15 minutes late, according to The Wall Street Journal citing data from the airline tracking firm FlightAware. In 2019, that percentage was just 24%, Flight Aware noted.
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During the second half of the summer, those numbers are expected to go higher, mainly due to more shortages of air traffic controllers, new labor issues and strikes impacting airlines as well as rising numbers of wildfires in Europe that are causing airlines to divert flights to European countries.
“This summer will be difficult,” Ryanair (RYAOF) – Get Free Report chief executive Michael O’Leary, in a recent conference call with investors.
The delays come at a time when U.S. tourist traffic to Europe is booming.
According to the airline public OAG (Official Airline Guide), over 114,000 inbound and outbound flights between the U.S. and Europe are scheduled this summer. Compare that figure to 2013, when only 80,000 trans-Atlantic flights were scheduled that summer, OAG reported.
For U.S. citizens traveling to Europe, Lisbon leads the list of European cities with the highest number of flight delays, with about half its flights delayed this summer, The Journal reported. London, Athens, Nice, and Paris also reported heavy delays.
