More than five million passengers experienced delays at Spanish airports between January and April this year, or approximately 23% of the total of almost 24 million travellers in Spain, according to AirHelp data.
In Spain, this first part of the year has been marked by controllers’ strikes at various airports in the country and strikes by Air Nostrum and Air Europa staff. In Europe, strikes in Germany, France and the United Kingdom have also jeopardised the punctuality of routes to Spain.
This year there have been 10% more disruptions than in 2022, when only three million people suffered flight delays. March was the month with the most incidents, as two of the five million passengers affected had their flights scheduled in this month.
Passengers departing from Gran Canaria were the most affected, with 30% of them leaving the island late. They were followed by Malaga airport, where almost half a million people (27.5%) did not fly at the scheduled time, and the airports of Tenerife South and Alicante, with 27% of interruptions.
In these first months of 2023, the luckiest passengers have been those departing from Asturias airport, as only 11% of them had a delay with their flight. The country’s largest airports, Madrid and Barcelona, caused incidents for 1.5 and 1 million passengers, respectively, doubling the records for 2022.
40 MILLION PASSENGERS IN EUROPE SUFFERED DELAYS
Across Europe, more than 40 million passengers were delayed in the first four months of 2023 (26%), a significant decrease compared to the same period last year, when around 20 million passengers were delayed (18%).
The UK ranks first among the countries with the most air passenger delays, with six million passengers delayed (28%) in the first four months of 2023. Turkey follows in second place, with some 5.5 million delayed passengers (32%), while Germany is third, with some 4.7 million passengers (30%) taking off late.
