BRISTOL Airport is among the most disrupted by long delays and also among those with the greatest proportion of flight cancellations.

Consumer satisfaction with their flying experience has been steadily falling post-pandemic, with delays the biggest contributing factor to poor consumer experiences when flying.

With this in mind, leading business travel management company Good Travel Management has delved into which UK airports are the most disrupted by long delays and have the greatest proportion of flight cancellations.

In third place is Bristol Airport, with an average wait of 31 minutes. Of the 26,372 flights that were delayed or cancelled last year, 6,573 were delayed by over an hour.

The airport is also among the highest for the number of cancellations, with 10 percent of all its flights being cancelled last year.

Bristol Airport also made headlines last year after it was hit with a barrage of incidents that impacted air travel, which also included storms grounding planes.

Good Travel Management data

In first place as the UK’s most delayed airport is Isle of Man Airport, also known as Ronaldsway Airport.

Despite having just 17 destinations for travellers to visit across six airlines, passengers flying to and from the Isle of Man can expect longer delays than anywhere else in the UK, with flights delayed by 35 minutes 6 seconds on average.

By comparison, flights with Heathrow Airport, the UK’s busiest airport, are delayed by just 25 minutes 41 seconds on average with 35 percent quicker wait times.

Isle of Man Airport also has the highest volume of cancellations than any other airport, with 5.2 percent of all flights cancelled last year.

Since August of 2023, the airport has been closing its runway for two-morning breaks due to shortages of air traffic controllers, though the airport is expected to lift these closures by autumn.

The shortage of staff has left several travellers facing long delays, and while the airport is rated above average on Google reviews (averaging 4.0 stars), complaints of being left on planes for long periods are not uncommon.

One passenger described the airport as “a joke. Landed 60 min[utes] ago and stuck on a plane because there are no stairs or stairs of staff available for us to disembark” while another described Ronsaldsway as “genuinely, one of the slowest airports I’ve ever used.”

Just missing out on the top spot is London Gatwick Airport, with an average delay of 33 minutes 37 seconds, almost 10 minutes higher than the national average of 24 minutes 6 seconds.

While the number of cancelled flights is lower than the national average, 1.8 percent compared to 2.1 percent, travellers to and from Gatwick Airport have the most significant delays of anywhere in the UK.

More than one in 10 flights to and from Gatwick Airport were delayed by over an hour (13 percent), the highest of all UK airports and almost double that of Heathrow Airport, at just seven percent.