A cancelled flight is one of the worst travel nightmares. The dread that comes with seeing your flight flash up as cancelled on the departure board is second to none, and can really hurt your plans.

There is one airport which has recently been named as the worst in the UK when it comes to cancelled flights. AirAdvisor analysed CAA data to figure out which UK airport is the least reliable. For the second year in a row, Southampton had the most flight cancellations. This south coast hub had almost three times as many cancellations as any other airport – although it has improved slightly from last year.

According to the CAA’s data, between January and November 2025, around 3% of scheduled services at Southampton Airport were scrapped. This was an improvement compared to 2024, when 3.3% of flights at the hub were cancelled.

The CAA defines a cancelled flight as “the non-operation of a previously planned flight, announced less than 24 hours before or after its scheduled departure time”.

It is not the responsibility of the airport itself – instead, the decision to cancel a flight is made by the airline operator.

A spokesperson for Southampton Airport said: “An airline’s decision to reluctantly cancel a flight can be due to a number of factors including weather issues, air traffic congestion, delayed arrivals or technical issues with aircraft. We will continue to work with our airline partners and their handling agents to support them in their operations.”

When it comes to the best airport, there was a surprising winner, Bournemouth only had 0.1% of flights cancelled, giving the airport the best rating out of the 20 covered in the research.

Other airports that performed well in the rankings included Luton, Stansted, East Midlands International, Bristol and Belfast International, where cancellations were less than half the national average.

Anton Radchenko, CEO of AirAdvisor, said: “Air passengers in the UK can breathe a sigh of relief as we head into 2026, with most trend data suggesting that flight cancellation rates at British airports are decreasing.

“During the pandemic and post-Covid, cancellations spiked significantly, but the CAA’s data suggest that generally speaking, the chances of your flight being grounded has fallen to the more ‘normal’ levels we saw in the years leading up to 2020.”