EU warns of 2025 holiday disruptions: ‘Airports without air traffic controllers’

Brussels – Bad news for Europeans: at least for the summer of 2025, travelers will have to endure delays and flight cancellations. Airports in the EU are lagging in modernizing their operating systems and facing staff shortages, condemning citizens and tourists to long waits and disruption. There is little that can be done. The Commissioner for Transport, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, can only acknowledge this, saying that “some air navigation service providers are significantly lagging in the recruitment of air traffic controllers and in modernizing their air traffic management systems.” A situation that, he admits, “has resulted in serious capacity shortages, especially in some area control centers of the busiest areas of European airspace.”

Tzitzikostas should provide clarifications and commitments to Benoit Cassart, MEP of the Liberals (Re), who presented a parliamentary question on the airport chaos, denouncing that the summer of 2024 recorded the highest number of flight punctuality disruptions in Europe in the last 25 years, with almost half of all flights delayed, and that “the situation in summer 2025 is set to be even worse.” However, the European commissioner has little reassurance to offer. On the contrary, he confirms that “the European aviation network is experiencing significant congestion, with delays due to air traffic control.” 

It does not mean that solutions to the problem cannot and should not be found, but it will take time. Given the timeframe, the 2025 holidays are already compromised. For the future, Tzitzikostas continues, “It is crucial that air navigation service providers effectively implement the capacity-enhancement measures set out in their performance plans.”

What the European Commission can do is provide assistance. Airport and aviation network management established at the EU level will “ensure the active coordination, support, and monitoring of operational activities” to ensure the best possible performance of the aviation management network. This is what Europe can do about it. Little, and late, to remove delays from the list of departing flights.