Ronaldsway Airport was one of the most disrupted airports in the British Isles over Christmas last year, new research has found.

The airport has had a tumultuous time recently with Airport Director Gary Cobb stepping down and being replaced by interim director Geoff Pugh.

Meanwhile, there have been a lack of air traffic control staff which caused disruption with not enough cover when workers need to take safety breaks.

Now business travel company Good Travel Management has crunched the numbers to find out which airports proved a nightmare for festive travellers in 2023.

The company gathered data around the delayed and cancelled flights in December 2023 from the Civil Aviation Authority and used this data to discover each airport’s average delay time, percentage of flights over one hour late and percentage of cancelled flights.

According to the figures, the island’s airport came in as the seventh worst with an average delay to flights of 21 minutes 56 seconds.

A total of 11% of flights were delayed and just over 1% were cancelled.

The worst overall was Teesside International with Aberdeen second and Exeter third. Big hitter Gatwick was fourth while Jersey performed worse than Ronaldsway.

The best performing airport over Christmas 2023 was Cardiff with only an average delay of 7 minutes and 24 seconds with Southend second best and Bournemouth third.

Earlier this year Airport Director Gary Cobb and has been replaced by interim director Geoff Pugh while the Department of Infrastructure (DoI) recruits a permanent replacement. The latest DoI development plan also revealed the airport has made a loss of nearly £9m in the last year.

But the DoI has already began recruiting and training up more air traffic control staff and an airport masterplan costing £120m over 10 years has been revealed.

The draft masterplan outlines future development proposals including improvements needed to airside, landside and terminal facilities.

These include enhancement of runways and taxiways, passenger processing and security, access, car parking and car rental facilities.