Short-notice flight cancellations at UK airports: monthly
Published 10 August 2026
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The Department for Transport (DfT) analysis of Cirium flight status data shows that short-notice cancellations are consistent with 2025 baselines. This means 0.8% of both arriving and departing passenger flights were cancelled in July 2026.
This analysis is based on all commercial passenger flights arriving and departing from UK airports.
Calculating flights removed from the schedule
To calculate the percentage of flights that have been cancelled in a month, all flights assigned the status ‘cancelled’ are added and divided by the total number of flights with a reported status (including cancellations).
For July, the total number of departure flights was 92,021. The total number of cancellations was 727. This means 0.8% of departing flights were cancelled.
Similarly, for arrivals, the total number of arrival flights during this period was 92,000. The total number of arrival cancellations was 749, meaning 0.8% of arriving flights were cancelled.
Data used for this analysis
DfT procure ‘on-time performance data’ from Cirium Aviation Analytics. Cirium is a trusted source of analytics in the aviation industry. They unify data across fleets, schedules, flights and traffic and fares to give the industry a single, authoritative view of what is happening and what comes next.
Cirium draws from over 3,000 live data sources, processing more than 25 million updates daily. No single source is taken at face value.
Inputs are compared, validated and reconciled before the data reaches customers. Cirium operates independently of any airline, airport or manufacturer, which means its benchmarks and analytics carry no commercial bias. ‘On-time performance’ data is used industry-wide because it is trusted as impartial.
All data in this publication is held as management information by DfT.
Management information (MI) in government refers to data that is collated and used in the normal course of business to inform operational delivery, policy development or the management of organisational performance.
Further information
For more information, contact: AviationResilienceDataRequests@dft.gov.uk.