Delays and canceled flights: what a disgrace, it's Italian the 'black sheep' airline in Europe
Italy is a country that, considering its size, population and economic system, stands out in Europe for the small number of companies [...]
Air Dolomiti
Star Alliance
Italy is a country that, considering its size, population and economic system, stands out in Europe for the small number of airlines, which by the way (with the sole exception of ITA Airways) are also small.
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Nevertheless, boasts a record: it has the worst airline in Europe, if you use flight punctuality and regularity as a parameter. The figure was drawn up by BestBroker starting with the Numbers for the year 2023 and provided by OAG, the world's leading agency for providing data and analysis involving airports and airlines.
On the top step of the podium of Europe's lagging companies BestBroker puts Air Dolomiti, the Italian regional airline, but owned by Lufthansa, based in Verona. During 2023, the carrier operated a total of 33,415 flights (an average of 91 per day). Of these, 37.7% departed late (i.e. 15 minutes after the scheduled time). To which must be added a 5.9% of cancelled departures.
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Aggregating the two data, it appears that during 2023 43.5% of Air Dolomiti's scheduled flights left late or never left at all.
In the top 10 of the not-so-illustrious ranking are two other carriers owned by the Lufthansa Group: the Swiss Swiss, which is at the Fifth place with 36.8% of delayed or canceled flights, and the same Lufthansa, which is tenth With the 32.7%. Then there is a second German company: Condor which is eighth with the 36.1%.
Completing the top 10 Air Serbia (which also had a black 2023 from the point of view of lost luggage), Second with 42.2% of flights departed late or canceled; Tap Air Portugal third with the 42%; British Airways fourth with the 39,3%; the British low-cost, sixth, easyjet with the 36,7%; the other low-cost (Hungarian) Wizz Air, seventh with the 36,2%; and the Dutch one Transavia, ninth with the 35,3%.
Even when considering only the most penalizing juncture for the passenger, namely flight cancellations, Air Dolomiti earns an unenviable record with 5.9%.
Other companies, which though are in the top 10 for delays/cancellations, Have actually a relatively low percentage of cancelled services: it is about Transavia, which did not operate in 2023 0.07% of its scheduled flights, Condor (0,61%), Tap (0,83%).
As for Air Dolomiti, 2024 started slightly better, compared with the overall figure for 2023, with the company from Villafranca di Verona in January saw 31.5% of operated connections arrive late and canceled 5.2% of scheduled connections.
In February (latest data available from OAG) the data on delayed flights improved to 26.7%, while the one related to the cancellations exploded to 10.8%. And in March, with the Rain of strikes involving Lufthansa and German airports, will likely be even worse.
