Of the total 7.35 million passengers who travelled from Portuguese airports between November 2022 and February of this year, around 2.5 million (35%) saw their flight cancelled or delayed, according to figures from AirHelp.

Most of those 2,572,868 passengers saw their flight delayed between 15 minutes and 2 hours, so they are not entitled to financial compensation. However, 55,325 people had their flight delayed for more than three hours and another 111,466 saw their trip cancelled, which entitles them, under European rules in force since 2004, to claim compensation from the responsible airline. Adding up the numbers of overbooking (denied boarding) and missed connecting flights, it comes to a total of 187,851 people entitled to financial compensation, according to a report by ECO.

December was the worst month for flying, which is justified by the various airlines that went on strike during that month — as was the case with TAP, in Portugal. In the last month of 2022 alone, 1,974,695 passengers flew from national airports, of which 845,201 (42.80%) had some type of disruption to their flight.

Humberto Delgado Airport, in Lisbon, tops the list of national airports with the most punctuality problems in the last four months, followed by six airports on the islands: Ponta Delgada, Corvo, Santa Cruz das Flores and Horta, all in the Azores; and Madeira Airport.

The most punctual airports are Vila do Porto, in Santa Maria; Lajes, on Terceira; Saint George; Pico (Azores); Faro Airport; and Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport, in Porto. At these airports, more than 73% of flights were on time.