How Many Flights Have Airlines Cancelled This Summer?

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Summer flight cancellations by airlines continue to dominate the news agenda.

Various numbers have been put on the number of cancellations.

A few weeks ago the UK government announced a “slot amnesty” to allow airlines to cancel up to 30% of their flights without forfeiting slots.

This now takes effect until October.

We also have numbers from Airport Coordination Ltd on the scale of cancellations under the amnesty by airline and airport.

There may be more cancellations throughout the summer due to operational issues such as Air Traffic Control delays.

Questions will be asked of airlines if they make further cancellations due to staff shortages.

Airports will also be under scrutiny of they impose further capacity restrictions. Gatwick has already done this for July & August. Heathrow has also forced airlines to cancel flights on an ad hoc basis.

Here is a summary across Heathrow, Gatwick and London City:

London Heathrow

The greatest number of cancellations are at London Heathrow, with 23,968 flights cancelled out of 151,239 slots.

British Airways accounts for the vast majority of this, with 17,419 cancellations out of 79,811 slots. This represents 22% of its slot portfolio.

Other airlines taking advantage of the amnesty include:

Aer Lingus – 631 cancellations out of 5,097 slots (12%)

Eurowings – 778 cancellations out of 2,638 slots (29%)

Flybe – 360 cancellations out of 1,382 slots (26%)

KLM – 416 cancellations out of 2,172 slots (19%)

LOT – 181 cancellations out of 678 slots (27%)

Lufthansa – 904 cancellations out of 4,609 slots (20%)

SAS – 715 cancellations out of 3,523 slots (20%)

United Airlines – 766 cancellations out of 4,972 slots (16%)

Virgin Atlantic – 571 cancellations out of 6,538 slots (9%)

Whilst most of these airlines are well short of the 70 / 30 “use it or lose it” slot threshold, there is little margin to avoid forfeiting slots should there be further cancellations.

A large number of airlines that have not taken advantage of the slot amnesty. These include Emirates, Etihad, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines and Turkish Airlines.

London Gatwick

At London Gatwick, 7,375 flights are cancelled out of 96,000 slots.

easyJet accounts for most of this with 3,288 cancellations out of 44,319 slots (7.4%).

BA has cancelled proportionally more with 1,666 cancellations out of 10,578 slots (16%).

London City

At London City the impact of cancellations is much less severe with 780 cancellations out of 16,726 slots.

This is primarily accounted for by BA CityFlyer with 344 cancellations out of 11,136 slots (3%).

KLM has cancelled 308 flights out of 1,460 slots (21%).

Lufthansa has cancelled 128 flights out of 666 slots (19%).

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