Dealing with unexpected flight cancellations is incredibly frustrating for travellers, whether they’re flying back home for the holidays or travelling for work.
Many cancellations are warranted due to unsafe flying conditions like dangerous weather, security concerns, or technical issues with aircraft. However, some cancellations are within the airline’s control, such as those caused by staffing shortages, scheduling conflicts, or maintenance delays that could have been managed with better planning.
Global Airlines with the Highest Cancellation Rates
Using data from a 2024 report by Cirium, Visual Capitalist ranked 15 global airlines with the highest cancellation rates.
The worst-ranking airline overall is Nigeria’s Dana Air. Despite having just 2,396 flights in 2024, the airline saw a cancellation rate of almost 34 percent. Dana Air had the highest cancellation rate among airlines tracked by Cirium, largely due to its suspension in April 2024 by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority following a runway incident. As of January 2025, the airline remains grounded pending safety and financial audits.
Second and third place both go to an Indonesian airline. Of Lion Air’s 125,550 flights last year, 16.7 percent were cancelled, while Wings Air cancelled 16.3 percent of their 62,176 flights.
Most of the airlines with the highest cancellation rates are based in the Asia Pacific and Middle East and Africa regions. When it comes to US airlines, only Cape Air made the list, with a cancellation rate of just over six percent.
In 2024, Ural Airlines was added to the European Union’s sanctions list for allegedly supporting Russia’s military operations in Ukraine by transporting military personnel and establishing a special ticket-selling scheme with the Russian ministry of defence.
Smaller airlines that connect remote or island areas, such as Air Seychelles, Winair (Caribbean), Air Austral (Réunion and Indian Ocean islands), and Cape Air (US and Caribbean) often face higher cancellation rates due to challenges related to weather, infrastructure, and operational complexities.
Indonesian airlines, such as Lion Air, Wings Air, and Batik Air, also grapple with similar challenges of operating across an archipelago of over 17,000 islands and frequent extreme weather conditions like monsoons and volcanic eruptions.
US Flight Delays and Cancellations in 2024
The American airports that had the most delays and cancellations in 2024 have also been revealed in a new study.
The study by AirHelp revealed that one in four of the 1 billion passengers that had plans to travel from US airports last year faced delays or even cancellations. July was a particularly turbulent month for passengers as a global IT outage caused a surge in flight disruptions.
Some airports experienced more issues than others. According to AirHelp’s study, the place that had the most disruptions for passengers in 2024 was Dallas Fort Worth International Airport in Texas, with 31 percent of its 42.9 million passengers experiencing disruptions.
Following that in second place is Chicago O’Hare, with a disruption rate of 26 percent in 2024, recording 38.7 million passengers in total last year.
In third place is Denver with 25 percent of its 40.8 million passengers experiencing such difficulties. New York John F. Kennedy came in fourth with 24 percent of its 30.4 million passengers experiencing delays or cancelations.
Rounding off the top six is Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson, which recorded 53.5 million passengers, and Los Angeles, which had 36 million passengers last year. Both had a disruption rate of 22 percent.
Across the United States, 23 percent of passengers who flew either domestically or internationally experienced delays or cancellations. The study says that a total of 236 million passengers in the country experienced disruptions throughout the year, marking a new high.
However, that is mainly down to more flights becoming available, and the general growth in the airline industry. In fact, the proportion of passengers disrupted in 2024 decreased from previous years. In 2022, the proportion of disrupted flights was up at 25 percent.
The number of people experiencing delays with their flights of three hours or more is on the rise, according to the study, growing from 11.8 million in 2022 to 15.7 million in 2024. Cancellations on the other hand, are decreasing, falling from 22 million passengers in 2022 to 14.4 million last year.
Additionally, the most disrupted route last year was Los Angeles to Frankfurt, Germany, with 93,000 passengers disrupted.
The study also revealed that around 780,000 U.S. passengers were eligible for compensation for their delayed or cancelled flights in 2024, especially those who flew overseas where there are stronger passenger rights protections, AirHelp says.
The day that the the Crowdstrike outage occurred, July 19, 2024, there was the highest number of flight disruptions with 64 percent of passengers affected.
