Low-cost airline Ryanair has said that it anticipates a rise of up to 20% in flight delays to and from Spain this summer, citing a lack of air traffic controllers (ATCs) in the country as the cause.
The airline has issued a ‘League of Delays’ statement (see image below), highlighting what it claims to be ‘those EU states whose short staffed and mismanaged ATCs are causing the worst delays for Ryanair flights and passengers’ so far this year, from 1 January to 26 May. They have also included the name of each country’s transport minister.
In Ryanair’s ‘League of Delays’, Spain is in second place after France, with over 11,500 flights delayed and over two million passengers affected so far this year.
The budget airline has publicly urged Spain’s Transport Minister, Óscar Puente, to address the issue by hiring more ATC personnel for control towers.
This latest announcement comes amid Ryanair’s on-going dispute with the Spanish government, particularly over what it refers to as ‘excessive’ airport charges. These fees are a primary reason the airline has scaled back operations at several smaller regional airports. The nature of this disagreement has led some to question the reliability of Ryanair’s claims regarding the expected surge in delays. ALSO READ: Ryanair ad campaign depicts Spanish minister as clown in ‘illegal’ fines row.
The situation follows a challenging 2024, which already marked a record high for air traffic control delays, even though the total number of flights in Europe was still 5% lower than pre-pandemic levels.
Ryanair has now cautioned that the ATC disruption could worsen this summer, blaming the European Commission and national governments for failing to resolve what it describes as ‘shoddy ATC services’.
In the airline’s ‘League of Delays’, France is the worst offender, followed by Spain, Germany, Portugal and the UK.
‘While ATC delays soared in 2024, ATC fees to airlines and passengers rose by double the rate of inflation – up 35% since Covid,’ the carrier said in its statement.
Michael O’Leary, Ryanair Group CEO, said: ‘Our ATC ‘league of delays’ exposes Europe’s worst ATCs for delays due to mismanagement and staff shortages from January to May 2025.’
‘We will hold EU transport ministers responsible for allowing such unnecessary and avoidable ATC delays to repeatedly occur,’ he added.
O’Leary said that national ATC services are given airline timetables nearly a year in advance, stating, ‘so there is no reason for them not to adequately staff up to manage this traffic’.
He continued: ‘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.’
‘Fixing Europe’s ATC staff shortages as well as protecting overflights during national ATC strikes would eliminate 90% of EU’s ATC delays but transport ministers won’t take any action,’ he said.
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