European Airport Delays At Major Hubs November 23-24

Published on Nov 24, 2025, 10:55 am CST

9 min read

Key points

On November 23 around 115 cancellations and 3817 delays hit major European hubs such as Heathrow, Schiphol, Paris, Frankfurt, and Munich
On November 24 another wave of around 124 cancellations and 3059 delays spread across London, Amsterdam, Nantes, Rome, Brussels, Birmingham, and Manchester
Cold weather, air traffic control capacity, staffing gaps, and general congestion are combining to drive delays rather than a single outage
Short haul and long haul connections through hubs like Heathrow, Schiphol, Rome Fiumicino, and Paris Charles de Gaulle face elevated misconnect and overnight risk
EU261 and related UK rules can provide care and in some cases €250 to €600 compensation, but many weather and ATC related delays will not trigger cash payouts
Travelers over the next 24 to 48 hours should add at least two to four hours of buffer for same day connections and avoid self connecting on separate tickets

Impact

Where Delays Are Most Likely: Expect the highest disruption at Heathrow Airport, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Leonardo da Vinci International Airport in Rome, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Frankfurt, Munich, and secondary clusters at Brussels, Helsinki, Geneva, Krakow, and Nantes
Best Times To Fly: Early morning and late evening departures that avoid the mid day peak and banked connection waves are more likely to depart close to schedule while rotations reset
Connections And Misconnect Risk: Leave at least three hours for intra European connections and four hours for long haul links through the main hubs, and avoid separate tickets that require rechecking bags or exiting and re clearing security
What Travelers Should Do Now: Check live status tools, move tight same day connections to longer ones where possible, prebook airport hotels as a hedge, and keep airline apps, notifications, and backup routings ready
EU261 And Care Rights: Document your delay or cancellation, keep receipts for meals and hotels, and use EU261 or equivalent UK rules to request care and possible compensation once you know whether the cause was weather, ATC, or airline controlled

Some of the links and widgets on this page are affiliates, which means we may earn a commission if you use them, at no extra cost to you.

European airport delays November 24 at hubs including Heathrow Airport (LHR), Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (AMS), Leonardo da Vinci International Airport (FCO), and Nantes Atlantique Airport (NTE) are the tail end of a rough forty eight hours across the network. Short haul and long haul travelers have been running into long queues, missed connections, and forced overnights as delay counts at key hubs have climbed into the thousands. Anyone transiting these airports over the next day should assume that yesterday's disruptions will keep rippling and build generous extra buffer into same day plans.

In practical terms, European airport delays November 24 mean that waves of winter weather, air traffic control constraints, and crew and ground staffing limits at major hubs are still echoing through the system, so travelers with tight connections across the continent face a higher than normal risk of misconnects and rebooking headaches.

European Airport Delays November 23 And 24 By Hub

Industry summaries built from FlightAware data show that on November 23 about 115 flights were cancelled and roughly 3,817 were delayed across major European airports, with hubs such as Heathrow, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Amsterdam Schiphol, Frankfurt, Munich, and others seeing between about one quarter and more than two fifths of their daily flights running late at different points in the day.

On November 24, a follow on snapshot highlighted another 124 cancellations and 3,059 delays concentrated in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Italy, and nearby markets, with disruption spread across London, Amsterdam, Nantes, Rome, Brussels, Birmingham, and Manchester. Heathrow saw on the order of 20 cancellations and more than 380 delays in one sample, while Amsterdam recorded around 23 cancellations and 457 delays in an early cut before numbers were updated later in the day. Brussels reported about 7 cancellations and more than 90 delays, adding a Belgian cluster on top of existing strike related friction in that market.

Drilling into the November 23 data shows how widespread the problem became. Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) logged around 258 delayed flights, about 41 percent of its schedule in one report, while Frankfurt Airport (FRA) showed more than 250 delayed flights and several cancellations, and Munich Airport (MUC) recorded two waves of disruption totaling more than 260 delayed departures and arrivals. Amsterdam Schiphol saw between 240 and 283 delayed flights with up to 16 cancellations in separate tallies, and Heathrow's combined rounds pointed to over 300 delayed movements and more than 20 cancellations.

Secondary hubs also felt the strain. Copenhagen, Basel Mulhouse, and Vilnius all reported comparatively modest cancellation counts, in the one to five flight range, but double digit percentages of services delayed, showing that even outside the very largest hubs, travelers could not count on clean operations. For point to point passengers this often meant an inconvenient late arrival, but for anyone relying on a ninety minute or two hour connection, the practical result was a missed onward flight and a scramble for remaining seats into the night.

Why There Is No Single Root Cause

Unlike a named storm that slams one country or a clearly defined computer outage at a single airline, this disruption wave is the product of several medium sized problems lining up at once. Travel trade coverage points to pockets of cold weather and icy conditions at key airports on November 24, which slowed deicing and ground handling. At the same time, Eurocontrol's recent network briefings underline that overall en route delay minutes remain far lower than last summer, but that weather, high traffic loads, and local staffing constraints can still produce concentrated bottlenecks on busy days.

Those bottlenecks show up as air traffic flow management restrictions, which reduce capacity through specific sectors and force airlines to accept longer routes, slower departures, or airborne holding around crowded hubs. When that happens in several parts of the network at once, every schedule becomes more fragile, and it only takes a modest early wave of delays to push banks of connecting flights out of alignment. By the time late evening long haul departures are ready to leave Europe, some crews and aircraft are out of position or bumping up against duty time limits, which increases the risk of cancellations and overnight delays even if the weather has improved.

How EU261 Handles Rolling Delays

European and UK air passenger rights rules, usually referred to as EU261 or EC 261, exist specifically to stop travelers being left without help when flights run very late or are cancelled. In broad terms, if your flight departs from an EU or UK airport, or is operated by an EU or UK airline into the region, and you arrive more than three hours late or your flight is cancelled at short notice, the airline owes you assistance and sometimes compensation.

Care rights are relatively broad. Airlines must provide meals, refreshments, and communication while you wait, and hotel accommodation and transfers if an overnight stay becomes necessary because of the disruption. Cash compensation, which runs from about €250.00 to €600.00 (EUR) depending on distance, usually applies when the airline itself could reasonably have avoided the problem, for example through better maintenance or staffing, but not when "extraordinary circumstances" such as severe weather or air traffic control capacity limits are to blame.

In a rolling operational mess like this weekend, cause codes often differ by flight. A delay that began with deicing and icy apron conditions at one airport may later be coded as crew availability or rotation constraints at another, while knock on delays from ATC slots can blur into general congestion. Practically, that means some passengers on November 23 and 24 will have valid compensation claims, others will be entitled only to care and rerouting, and many will not know which applies until they ask the airline to spell out the official cause and provide a written statement.

How Much Buffer To Build At Key Hubs

For travelers who still have flexibility, the most effective tool is time. Given the size of the delay waves on November 23 and 24, anyone connecting through Heathrow, Amsterdam Schiphol, Rome Fiumicino, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Frankfurt, or Munich in the next twenty four to forty eight hours should treat ninety minute connections as risky and plan instead for at least three hours on a single ticket, and four hours if one leg is a long haul flight outside Europe.

Self connecting on separate tickets is especially fragile in this pattern, because airlines are not obliged to protect you on the second ticket if the first leg is late. Where possible, avoid itineraries that require reclaiming and rechecking bags between non aligned carriers, or that depend on clearing passport control and security again on tight margins. If you cannot avoid a self connection, buy fully flexible fares when feasible, and pre identify alternative routings through secondary hubs such as Zurich, Vienna, or Madrid, which may be less congested than Heathrow or Amsterdam during this reset window.

Travelers whose trips are essential and fixed, for example business meetings or cruise departures, should consider flying into Europe a full day early or shifting their inbound flight to a less busy time of day, rather than gambling on an early morning arrival and same day onward travel. For leisure trips, a simple reframe often helps, treating the hub as part of the holiday and booking airport hotels with day room or lounge options so that if the worst happens, you have a predictable place to sleep and recharge.

Background: Why Winter Delays Cascade In Europe

The European network is dense, with large hub airports feeding dozens of spokes and many airlines relying on tight turnarounds and carefully timed connection banks to keep aircraft productive. Winter weather, even when not extreme, stresses that model because deicing, slippery aprons, and lower visibility all slow the choreography of ground handling, boarding, and departure sequencing. At the same time, staffing buffers are often thinner outside the core summer season, which means an illness spike or local industrial tension can leave fewer spare crews or controllers available to absorb unexpected hold ups.

Eurocontrol's recent reports show that, on average, Europe has made progress in reducing en route delay minutes compared with 2024, but they also highlight that bad days still occur when several small disruptions align. This November weekend is a textbook example, one in which no single airline, airport, or state is at the center of the story, yet travelers moving through Heathrow, Schiphol, Rome, Paris, Munich, and Brussels still experience the end result as very real chaos in check in halls and gate areas.

How To Use This With Other Adept Traveler Coverage

Because Brussels Airport (BRU) is one of the hubs seeing knock on disruption, travelers headed into Belgium in the next few days should read this piece alongside our coverage of the national strike wave and its impact on rail, local buses, and airport access roads, which further complicates airport to city transfers. See, for example, our analysis of the current three day strike pattern and waiver options in Belgium. For a deeper look at how EU passenger rights work in practice, pair this alert with our evergreen guide to European and UK air passenger rights, which explains how EU261 and its UK counterpart apply to long delays, cancellations, and missed connections on both simple and multi leg itineraries.

For more information check out our other articles: