During the first three months of 2026, more than 27 million passengers took a flight from an airport in Spain. According to data provided by the passenger rights advocacy company, AirHelp, l approximately 1 out of every 3 flights -34.4%- did so with delay or was canceled, affecting nearly 9 million passengers.
These data reflect a serious worsening of air traffic in the country compared to last year. In the first quarter of 2025, more than 82% of displacements were carried out on schedule scheduled, halving the number of affected passengers -4.6 million passengers- compared to current figures.
However, it is surprising that despite the unpunctuality, the number of passengers entitled to compensation is only 185 thousand passengers.
The most punctual airports and those that accumulate more delays
According to AirHelp data, taking into account airports with more than 200 scheduled monthly flights, passengers who departed from Asturias have been the most fortunate. Of the 159 thousand passengers who took a flight from Asturias, 81.6% of them departed on time. Following this, that of Granada-Jaén and that of Ibiza are proclaimed as the second and third best airport of this first quarter of the year, with a punctuality rate of 79.7% and 74.6%, respectively.
On the contrary, passengers at the airports of La Palma, Santiago de Compostela and Ceuta did not have the same luck. These airports hold the worst data in this first part of the year, with punctuality percentages of 36.8%, 44.3% and 47.2%, respectively.
Additionally, AirHelp has also studied the performance of the main Spanish airports: Madrid and Barcelona. These airports concentrate 46% of passenger traffic in Spain, transporting 6.8 million passengers from the country's capital and 5.5 million passengers from Barcelona. Of these, only 66.3% took off on time in the case of Madrid, and 68.9% in the case of doing so from Barcelona.
