Manchester Tops UK Airports for Departure Delays in 2025

Manchester Airport recorded the longest average departure delays among the UK's 23 busiest commercial airports in 2025, with flights leaving 19 minutes and 30 seconds behind schedule on average, according to an analysis of Civil Aviation Authority data.

The finding, drawn from scheduled and chartered outbound flights at airports handling at least 1,000 departures last year, placed Manchester ahead of Birmingham Airport, which averaged 18 minutes and 42 seconds, and Bournemouth Airport at 17 minutes and 18 seconds. Liverpool John Lennon Airport, less than 30 miles away, performed best with an average delay of just nine minutes and 24 seconds. The national average delay fell to 14 minutes and 54 seconds, an improvement from 18 minutes and 24 seconds in 2024. Cancellations were excluded from the analysis.

As the UK's third-busiest airport and one of only two with dual runways alongside Heathrow, Manchester handled 32 million passengers last year. The airport recently completed a decade-long, 1.3 billion pound transformation that modernized and doubled the size of Terminal 2, closed Terminal 1, and left work on Terminal 3 ongoing.

Rory Boland, editor of Which? Travel magazine,...