Flight cancellations rise from 2023 with 2.4m passengers disrupted – and the most cancelled route revealed

New data reveals which holiday destination you should jet off to if you don’t want the stress of a likely flight cancellation

Flights from Manchester Airport to Menorca was the most cancelled route compared to other UK flights in the first half of the year (Getty Images)

Passengers experiencing flight cancellations out of the UK have risen compared to the same period last year, with over 2.4 million people having their flight called off in the first half of 2024, new data shows.

Airport strikes and IT outages are some of the many factors that have been named as leading to mass flight cancellations so far this year, with more than 2.4 million passengers having their flights cancelled when travelling between January and June 2024 – almost triple the figure from the same time in 2023.

There have been around 450,800 registered flights departing from the UK during that period, amounting to more than 79 million people who had planned a trip out of UK airports.

Approximately three per cent of these passengers had experienced flight cancellations, according to data collected by travel tech company AirHelp.

Even more people experienced disruptions to their flights, with around 24.4 million passengers experiencing some sort of disturbance to their flight and travel plans.

Focusing on routes with 20,0000 passengers and over, there were some that particularly stood out as having the highest rate of cancellations in the first half this year.

Some well-known holiday destinations appeared high on the list of most cancelled UK routes, with flights from Manchester International Airport to Menorca Airport in Spain taking top spot with a 24 per cent cancellation rate, affecting 7,700 passengers.

Second on the list was Sumburgh, a Highlands and Islands airport in Scotland, flying to Aberdeen’s Dyce airport with a cancellation rate of over 23 per cent.

Birmingham International Airport to Paphos International Airport, a well-visited holiday spot in Cyprus is third on the list, with 21 per cent of flights cancelled earlier this year.

There are also a few destinations where the likelihood of your flight being scrapped is very low.

Many of the routes had a zero per cent cancellation rate, but many still logged distruptions and delays when jetting out of the UK.

Those who were the luckiest were passengers flying to Bole Airport in Ethiopia from London Heathrow, having has a minute disruption rate of six per cent.

Flights jetting out to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International for a southern US trip from Manchester International takes the second spot, with a disruption rate of seven per cent, and a journey from East Midlands Airport to Krakow in Poland also tied in second place with seven per cent.

Tomasz Pawliszyn, CEO of AirHelp, says that “the industry is currently facing a testing time, with strikes and IT outages; however, we must look and identify ways to maximise the customer experience from planning to arrival wherever possible.”

“With one of the most reliable and accurate collections of flight data in the world, we provide holidaymakers and business travellers with an in-depth look at how airlines and airports are performing.”

The UK flight industry was hit by mass airport staff strikes earlier this year after a series of planned walkouts occurred over shift pattern dissatisfaction and pay.

Not included in the data would be the thousands of passengers who were hit by one of the largest global IT outages ever in late July.

Around 100,000 were estimated to have had their flights disrupted by the IT outage over one weekend, with major airlines such as British Airways and easyJet cancelling or grounding flights in London’s biggest airport.

Not on the list were flights out to Israel, which saw mass suspensions from major airlines earlier this year, but some started to resume.

As of August, departures from Luton to Israel’s main airport, Tel Aviv, are currently suspended, along with a range of links from continental Europe.

There were an estimated 700 flights to various Israel airports from the UK in the first half of this year, AirHelp’s data says, yet around 19,000 passengers experienced flight cancellations.

Some airlines are currently grounding their flights to and from Israel, Jordan and Lebanon as tension in the Middle East continues to grow.

The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office warns against travel to Israel but stops short of urging British citizens to leave.

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