Kiwi.com Flight Disruptions Report: August 2025

Kiwi.com, a global travel technology company focused on solving the key anxieties of air travel, shares the findings of its latest report into the major causes of disruptions to flights. 

 

As was the case in both June and July, Kiwi.com’s August analysis showed disruption impacts continued to be heavily driven by the conflict in the Middle East – where almost 40% of flights experienced disruptions. The total disruption rate for the month was marginally up on the same period for last year according to Kiwi.com’s data, at 0.17% higher than 2024.

 

Top causes of flight disruptions¹ | August 2025 

 

KEY CAUSES OF DISRUPTIONS	% OF TOTAL 2025	% OF TOTAL 2024	YoY ⬆️⬇️
Geopolitics/War/Terrorism – Middle East conflict	76.71%	32.36%	137%
Industrial Action	4.18%	1.27%	229%
Weather	2.08%	2.33%	-11%
Airline Operational Issues	0.64%	1.95%	-67%
Airport Closures	0.56%	0.94%	-41%
Uncategorized	0.23%	0.64%	-65%
ATC restrictions	0.17%	0.23%	-28%
Government Regulations	0.06%	0.23%	-74%
Natural Disasters	0.00%	0.61%	-100%

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¹) Based on the number of Kiwi.com passengers affected by flight disruptions

Industrial Action

 

Although not the biggest overall cause of disruptions, strikes did make a show again in the August data, an incident increase of 229% when compared to last year. The threat of strikes are a major cause of anxiety for travelers, even if they are called off it still leads to uncertainty and there were multiple situations through August and into September of both industrial action and the threat of action.  There are also many other potential causes of disruption that travelers feel threatened by such as operational issues, changing regulations and bad weather.

Passengers threatened by flight disruptions | August 2025

 

Type of monitored event	% of passengers potentially affected by disruptions 2025
Industrial Action	76.41%
Weather	10.22%
Geopolitics/War/Terrorism – Middle East conflict	5.09%
Airline Operational Issues	4.48%
Airport Closures	1.86%
Uncategorized	0.87%
ATC restrictions	0.83%
Government Regulations	0.23%

 

Commenting on the impact of strikes, Tom Parry, Head of Business Resilience at Kiwi.com said:  “During August, the European travel landscape was defined not by widespread chaos, but by persistent uncertainty – we tracked 19 industrial action events in August alone. Strikes in the airline industry have widely different impacts on passengers, a short strike held by 30% of airport security personnel may cause localized delays, whereas a prolonged walkout by 80% of pilots at a specific airline can paralyse an entire network.”

 

“At Kiwi.com we do everything we can to help our customers complete their journeys without interruption, so understanding these variables is essential for our effective resilience planning and response. Our investment in the Kiwi.com Guarantee gives customers the immediate opportunity to book new flights if affected and getting positive feedback from our customers is a great bonus.”

Kiwi.com customer, Alex, travelling from Budapest to Madrid during the threat of strike action from baggage handlers, shared: “Good experience. After buying the tickets they took care of everything. Check in was automatic, informed us that we might have some disruptions due to strike (luckily was not the case).”

 

Long term strikes

 
 

Weather

Though you may expect calm blue skies in Europe during August, a number of weather related incidents also made it into the table for disruptions for the month.  

 

• Northern UK Storm Floris – yellow storm in the north of the UK, impacting airports from Manchester northwards.
• Porto Airport low visibility – Eurocontrol reported on Monday, Aug 11, that arrivals were being regulated at Francisco Sa Carneiro Porto Airport (OPO) because of low visibility. High delays, some cancellations.
• Taiwan typhoon Podul – On Aug 13, Typhoon Podul struck southern Taiwan with winds peaking at 118 miles per hour. Impact on flights and transportation included extensive flight cancellations (252 domestic flights and 155 international).

 

Thunderstorms and heavy rain, low cloud and poor visibility:

• Barcelona bad weather (Aug 22) – high delays and some cancellations 
• Romania and Bulgaria weather (Aug 27)  – Eurocontrol issued a forecast with warning of bad weather impacting flights in Romania and Bulgaria
• Barcelona bad weather (Aug 27) – high delays due to weather and some cancellations

 

The Kiwi.com Guarantee gives travelers the flexibility to receive instant credit refunds for disrupted or canceled flights, regardless of the carrier, allowing them to rebook without delay. For the month of August Kiwi.com’s Guarantee supported customers affected by these disruptions, providing over half a million euros to affected customers so they could immediately replace disrupted flights. 

 

– ends –

 

NOTES FOR EDITORS

^*Countries in the Middle East most affected by flight disruptions: Israel, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Qatar 

The Kiwi.com Guarantee gives travelers the flexibility to receive instant credit refunds for disrupted or canceled flights—regardless of the carrier—allowing them to rebook without delay. The offering also includes automatic check-in and a unified Kiwi.com Live Boarding Pass that personalizes all essential itinerary information for travelers in one seamless experience. “The Kiwi.com Guarantee is not just a product improvement, it is an innovation to bring solutions to some of the key anxieties around air travel that our customers face,” said Oliver Dlouhý, Co-founder and CEO. “Only in July, we supported our customers during disruptions by providing them with almost half a million euros to replace their disrupted itineraries,” Dlouhý concluded.

 

Categorization of causes of flight disruptions
For the purposes of this report and further internal analyses, the various events causing flight disruptions are grouped into multiple categories, which are designed to be as comprehensive as possible. 

• Geopolitics/War/Terrorism 

In August, most of the cases in Kiwi.com’s data were related to the ongoing Middle East conflict

• Industrial Action

Any disruption event caused by either airport or airline staff strikes.  

• Airline Operational Issues

This includes events such as airline insolvency resulting in flight cancellations or cancelling previously announced (and sold) routes,. 

• Government Regulations

For example, changes in governmental policies, such as the US president’s proclamation banning travel to the US from 12 countries signed on June 5 and going into effect on June 9, were still affecting Kiwi.com customers in July. 

• Airport Closures 

Such as the Birmingham airport closure after an emergency landing of a private aircraft on August 6.

• Natural Disasters

Events such as wildfires, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, mudslides and landslides, or extreme flooding. 

• Uncategorized

Very rarely, events that do not fit into any of the predefined categories happen. These appear as “uncategorized” and are usually one-off events.
 
 
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