BRITS heading abroad this summer have been warned to expect record flight delays, according to the boss of Ryanair.
Ryanair has revealed Europe’s worst air traffic control centres (ATCs) for delays and the UK has come in fifth worst with thousands of Brits impacted.
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Of Ryanair’s flights between January 1, 2025 and May 26, 2025, 1,642 flights to/from the UK had been delayed.
In total, this meant that nearly 300,000 British passengers were impacted and experienced flight delays.
Ryanair stated that the European Commission and European governments “have taken no action to fix their shoddy ATC services and ATC delays will now be even worse in summer 2025″.
Micheal O’Leary, the airline’s CEO, added that if staff shortages and ATC issues are not sorted, there will be “record ATC flight delays this summer“.
The airline’s ‘League of Delays’ also revealed that France and Spain have been the most impacted so far in 2025, with 15,634 and 11,576 flights delayed respectively.
This has meant that 2.8million Ryanair passengers have been impacted in France and just under 2.1 million in Spain.
Ryanair in Germany and Portugal also experienced thousands of flight delays.
The “mismanagement”, according to the airline, “must not be allowed to preside over another year”.
The airline is now calling now passengers to visit a website it has created – ‘Air Traffic Control Ruined Your Flight’ – to “demand that their national Transport Ministers take action to properly staff their national ATC services and avoid record ATC flight delays this summer”.
The website even has a email template for travellers to complain directly to their national Transport Minister and demand that these “lazy politicians take action”.
The airline added that 2024 was a record year for ATC delays despite five per cent fewer flights in Europe than pre-Covid.
While ATC delays soared last year, ATC fees to airlines and passengers also rose by double the rate of inflation.
Mr O’Leary said: “We will hold EU Transport Ministers responsible for allowing such unnecessary and avoidable ATC delays to repeatedly occur.
“National ATCs are made aware of airline schedules almost 12 months in advance, so there is no reason for them not to adequately staff up to manage this traffic.
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“This is especially important for the first wave of morning flights as any morning delays knock on to flights throughout the rest of the day.”
Mr O’Leary added that fixing Europe’s ATC staff shortages as well as protecting overflights (flights going over a certain area without landing) during national ATC strikes would help to reduce the EU’s ATC delays by 90 per cent.
However he reiterated that “Transport Ministers won’t take any action”.
Ryanair is also suing UK air traffic control HQ for £5m after work-from-home engineer ruined 700,000 traveller’s plans.
Plus, Ryanair launches more flights to Europe from regional UK airport in time for summer.
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