Ahead of the summer travel season, CANSO Europe’s ANSP members prepared for the challenge of managing record-equalling levels of traffic and built on lessons learned from summer 2024. They put in place measures such as optimisation of sectoral openings, improved staff rostering, procedures to manage traffic in adverse weather and enhanced collaboration with other operational stakeholders.
Their efforts paid off. According to figures published by EUROCONTROL for the period 1 June – 31 August: [1]
- Total traffic was 3% higher than summer 2024 (average of 35,122 flights per day, 1% vs pre-pandemic Summer 2019)
- Yet air traffic flow management (ATFM) delays dropped by 27% (an average of 3.9 minutes per flight versus 5.4 minutes in 2024)
- Much of this could be attributed to notable improvements in performance by ANSPs:
- Capacity-related delays were 25% lower than summer 2024 (1.4 minutes per flight versus 1.9 minutes)
- Staffing-related delays were also down by 25% (0.4 minutes versus 0.6 minutes).
It is also significant that this was achieved despite more traffic in the skies and a reduced European airspace due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine (20% smaller since 2022). Another critical element is the uneven distribution of traffic, with strong growth in the South-East and South-West corridors, where some areas exceeded 20% traffic growth compared to 2024. This highlights the need to take into account local circumstances when considering the overall network.
Thanks to improved performance across the European network, 71% of flights arrived at their destination within 15 minutes of the scheduled landing time, up from 66% last summer. These figures reflect a better summer travel experience for millions of air passengers.
CANSO members remain committed to further enhancing their performance and will review the summer figures in more detail to see what more they can learn and how they can continue to deliver in summer 2026.
[1] EUROCONTROL: Special #FlashBriefing:Overview of the performance of the European aviation network in Summer 2025 (June-August) – 8 September 2025
Tags: CANSO
