Imagine this: you’re waiting for your flight, checking your watch, and confirming your boarding time. Yet, when that time arrives, the gate agent comes on the P.A. and announces a delay. Worse yet, you have a connecting flight to catch, which suddenly seems in jeopardy.
Unfortunately, these types of delays are all too common. In fact, the flight tracking and analysis app Flighty finds that 41% of flights have some sort of delay, while 22% experience delays of 15 minutes or more. But which airlines saw the greatest percentage of those 15+ minute delays in 2025? Flighty has that answer as well.
First, before we get into the results, it should be noted that Flighty’s data comes from more than 22 million flights tracked by its users between January and November 2025. Also, only global carriers with more than 150,000 flights per year were considered.
Starting with domestic carriers, Frontier topped the list with 28% of its flights seeing delays. That was well ahead of second-place JetBlue and third-place Southwest at 25%. American Airlines (24%) and Alaska Airlines (23%) rounded out the top five for the U.S.
Looking internationally, it was another budget carrier that proved to be the most delayed: Ryanair. If you’ve ever looked at Ryanair’s social media presence, then you know they are likely unbothered by this distinction — or what you might say about it. According to Flighty, 29% of the carrier’s flights saw delays. That 29% figure was also true of Air France and easyJet. Then came Frontier, followed by Lufthansa (26%).
Zooming out, Flighty says that the global average delay is 23 minutes. That may not sound like much, but it means that travelers lost 3.9 million hours of time this year.
By the way, if you’re wondering what Flighty is, it’s an advanced flight tracking app meant to help users gain insight into their flights as well as share their itineraries with others. Among the many features is a delay prediction tool, so you hopefully know what to expect. The app also says it can get you delay alerts faster than the airlines themselves. While Flighty offers a free version, paid Pro weekly, annual, and lifetime plans are also available.
If I had to guess why budget airlines overindex for delays on this list, I’d imagine it has to do with the aggressive scheduling they like to employ. I’ve personally seen this with Allegiant, where the turnaround time is tighter than seems possible — because it usually isn’t. Of course, other factors that can impact any airline’s overall ranking may be its choice of hubs and the poor weather that impacts those cities.
The bottom line is that flight delays are no fun. Also — and this isn’t an ad — but the Flighty app does look pretty awesome. Perhaps I’ll have to take it for a test flight the next time I travel. In any case, let’s hope that overall delays improve in 2026 and bring that 3.9 million wasted hours total down.