Overview
We measured 6,784 departures at 11 airports between 12 and 19 August 2026, and 4,965 of them (73%) left within 15 minutes of schedule. The average departure delay was 12.2 minutes. Warsaw Chopin Airport (WAW) ran the worst average at 18.2 minutes, while the single longest wait of the week was 5 h 34 min on a Wizz Air flight out of Varna Airport (VAR). Every figure here comes from our own polling of live departure boards at the 11 airports named below, covers only the last seven days, and describes departure delay alone. These are not network-wide airline statistics and not an industry ranking.
Airport departure delays: where flights ran latest
Warsaw Chopin is the outlier. Its 59% on-time share sits 12 points below the next airport in the table, and its average delay is more than three times that of Katowice International Airport (KTW).
| # | Airport | Average delay | On time | Over 60 min late | Worst delay | Departures measured |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Warsaw Chopin Airport (WAW), Warsaw [PL] | 18.2 min | 59% | 5.9% | 3 h 52 min | 1876 |
| 2 | Burgas Airport (BOJ), Burgas [BG] | 13.7 min | 73% | 9.7% | 3 h 55 min | 340 |
| 3 | Chişinău International Airport (KIV), Chişinău [MD] | 13.4 min | 79% | 9.7% | 4 h 56 min | 515 |
| 4 | Sofia Airport (SOF), Sofia [BG] | 12.5 min | 72% | 3.7% | 3 h 18 min | 657 |
| 5 | Kraków John Paul II International Airport (KRK), Kraków [PL] | 12.3 min | 71% | 5.1% | 4 h 01 min | 1006 |
| 6 | Varna Airport (VAR), Varna [BG] | 9.5 min | 81% | 4.4% | 5 h 34 min | 251 |
| 7 | Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport (RZE), Rzeszów [PL] | 8.9 min | 83% | 5.6% | 2 h 11 min | 124 |
| 8 | Copernicus Wrocław Airport (WRO), Wrocław [PL] | 7.7 min | 83% | 5.4% | 5 h 21 min | 518 |
| 9 | Modlin Airport (WMI), Warsaw [PL] | 7.3 min | 77% | 4.8% | 3 h 37 min | 293 |
| 10 | Gdańsk Lech Wałęsa Airport (GDN), Gdańsk [PL] | 5.7 min | 84% | 3.2% | 3 h 40 min | 648 |
| 11 | Katowice International Airport (KTW), Katowice [PL] | 5.3 min | 88% | 3.4% | 4 h 24 min | 556 |
Size is not the divider; the Warsaw pair is
The spread across the table runs from 5.3 to 18.2 minutes. Warsaw's two airports sit at opposite ends: Chopin at 18.2 minutes average and 59% on time, Modlin at 7.3 minutes and 77%. Kraków, the second-busiest airport we track with 1,006 measured departures, averaged 12.3 minutes, and Gdańsk with 648 departures averaged 5.7. Volume alone therefore does not explain the ranking. The three Bulgarian airports and Chişinău carry the highest shares of departures over an hour late, with Burgas and Chişinău both at 9.7%. For a passenger with a choice between Chopin and Modlin, or between Katowice airport and Kraków, the difference is measurable in the departure figures. Passengers arriving from Ukraine by road should add the crossing itself to that calculation, since border queue times are the part of the journey that can be planned in advance.
The five worst departures of the week
| # | Flight | Airline | From | To | Date | Delay |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WZZ4515 | Wizz Air | Varna Airport (VAR) | Berlin (BER) | Tue 18.08 | 5 h 34 min |
| 2 | RYR5417 | Ryanair | Copernicus Wrocław Airport (WRO) | Dublin (DUB) | Mon 17.08 | 5 h 21 min |
| 3 | WZZ882 | Wizz Air | Varna Airport (VAR) | London, England (LTN) | Thu 13.08 | 5 h 15 min |
| 4 | HYS407 | HiSky Europe | Chişinău International Airport (KIV) | Hamburg (HAM) | Thu 13.08 | 4 h 56 min |
| 5 | WZZ1005 | Wizz Air | Katowice International Airport (KTW) | London, England (LTN) | Wed 12.08 | 4 h 24 min |
Two of the five left Varna, and the five are spread across four different days. Each row is one flight, so none of them supports a conclusion about the carrier that operated it. Our records show how late each departure left and nothing further.
Airlines: who left on time and who did not
| Airline | On time | Average delay | Departures measured |
|---|---|---|---|
| LOT Polish Airlines | 58% | 17.5 min | 1438 |
| Smartwings Poland | 63% | 20.7 min | 75 |
| Ryanair | 66% | 18 min | 512 |
| Wizz Air Malta | 74% | 17.2 min | 136 |
| Lufthansa | 75% | 11.5 min | 172 |
| Bulgaria Air | 75% | 10.9 min | 128 |
| Wizz Air | 79% | 11.1 min | 1165 |
| KLM | 80% | 8.2 min | 94 |
| Buzz | 82% | 6 min | 1159 |
| FlyOne | 83% | 7.9 min | 125 |
| Turkish Airlines | 85% | 7 min | 109 |
| Pegasus Airlines | 87% | 5.3 min | 68 |
| Enter Air | 97% | -3.4 min | 155 |
The carrier gap is wider than the airport gap. Enter Air pushed back an average of 3.4 minutes ahead of schedule across 155 departures, while Smartwings Poland averaged 20.7 minutes late. LOT Polish Airlines is the largest sample in the table at 1,438 measured departures, with a 58% on-time share and 59 departures more than an hour late. Two carriers of similar size sit far apart: Wizz Air at 79% on time over 1,165 departures, Buzz at 82% over 1,159 with a 6-minute average. Every one of these figures describes airline punctuality on departures from the 11 airports we monitor, and not the carrier's whole network.
A carrier appears in this table only with at least 68 measured departures, which is 1% of the week's total. Smaller operators do exist in our records, and a sample of a dozen flights carries too much noise to publish as a punctuality figure. Our data holds how late a flight left, never the reason, so we do not attribute any of these numbers to a cause.
How the week trended
Monday 17 August was the weakest day in the window: 17.4 minutes average delay and 67% on time across 968 departures. Tuesday 18 August was the strongest full day at 10.9 minutes and 76%. The middle of the window held steady, with Wednesday through Sunday all between 72% and 74% on time and averages from 10.8 to 14.2 minutes. The first and last entries of the day-by-day series are partial, because the window rolls over 7×24 hours rather than calendar days, so their lower counts carry no trend.
Flight delays today: delayed right now
The following snapshot was taken at 07:56 on 19 August 2026, Kyiv time, and it ages within the hour. Across the monitored airports, 10 departures were running more than 15 minutes behind schedule, 3 of them past the 60-minute mark.
| Flight | Airline | From | To | Delay |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ISR730 | Israir | Burgas Airport (BOJ) | Tel Aviv | 2 h 19 min |
| RYS8213 | Buzz | Copernicus Wrocław Airport (WRO) | Bristol, England | 2 h 01 min |
| TVP7422 | Smartwings Poland | Warsaw Chopin Airport (WAW) | CFU | 1 h 16 min |
| RYS2596 | Buzz | Copernicus Wrocław Airport (WRO) | Malaga | 40 min |
| SEH681 | Sky Express | Sofia Airport (SOF) | Athens | 32 min |
| LOT395 | LOT Polish Airlines | Warsaw Chopin Airport (WAW) | Hamburg | 28 min |
| LOT265 | LOT Polish Airlines | Warsaw Chopin Airport (WAW) | Amsterdam | 23 min |
| RYR4046 | Ryanair | Kraków John Paul II International Airport (KRK) | Naples | 18 min |
| LOT133 | LOT Polish Airlines | Warsaw Chopin Airport (WAW) | Istanbul | 16 min |
| ROT292 | TAROM | Sofia Airport (SOF) | Bucharest | 16 min |
What to do with these numbers
- Open the online board for your airport before you set off. The weekly window closed on 19 August; the current data keeps moving, and the page for Warsaw WAW or any other airport we track shows the state of today's departures.
- Leave extra time on a short connection if you depart from an airport near the top of the table. A late push-back can be partly recovered in the air, but a tight transfer is where the risk sits.
- When two airports serve the same city, the punctuality gap belongs in the decision alongside the fare. Chopin and Modlin are 18 points apart on the on-time share this week.
- If the trip begins with a land border crossing, check the queue before booking a departure time. Travellers heading to Rzeszow airport from Ukraine face a wait that varies by hour and by crossing point.
Useful tools
- Flights — live departures and arrivals — the airports we track, updated every few minutes
- Airline punctuality — on-time share per carrier from our own measurements
- Warsaw Chopin Airport (WAW) — live departures and delay history
- Burgas Airport (BOJ) — live departures and delay history
- Chişinău International Airport (KIV) — live departures and delay history
- Sofia Airport (SOF) — live departures and delay history
- Border Queues Live — current waiting times at Ukraine's borders
- Bus Carriers Hub — ground alternatives to a short-haul flight
Source: nakordoni.eu — Flights, our own departure-board tracking | Updated: 19.08.2026