Aircraft turnarounds across North America and Europe took an average of 11.1 minutes longer than scheduled during the first quarter of 2026, according to a new industry report from aviation technology company Assaia. The findings highlight how small delays during ground handling operations can accumulate, affecting airline schedules, airport capacity and operating costs.

Assaia's 2026 Turnaround Report found that the gap between planned and actual turnaround times has persisted for seven consecutive quarters, suggesting a widespread and ongoing challenge for airlines, airports and ground handling providers.

The report analyzed more than 2 million aircraft turnarounds, including a detailed examination of 750,000 operations to identify how delays develop throughout the turnaround process.

According to the findings, the best- and worst-performing turnarounds begin in much the same way. During the first 12 minutes, there is little difference between them. However, small delays involving aircraft servicing, baggage loading and departure preparations gradually accumulate, creating increasingly significant schedule disruptions.

Once an aircraft misses its scheduled departure window, the resulting delays can extend beyond the time lost during individual ground handling activities, potentially affecting subsequent flights throughout the day.

"Delays rarely begin with one obvious problem," said Christiaan Hen, CEO of Assaia. "Small amounts of time are lost across the turnaround and gradually add up, creating knock-on delays that can follow an aircraft throughout the day and impact the wider network."

The report also examined the relationship between artificial intelligence monitoring and turnaround performance. Assaia compared approximately 125,000 AI-monitored turnarounds at eight major airports with 1.5 million turnarounds at 20 comparable airports.

AI-monitored operations averaged 7.3 minutes over schedule, compared with 11.4 minutes at the peer airports, representing a 36% smaller gap between planned and actual turnaround times.

While the comparison does not establish that AI monitoring alone produced the improvement, the findings suggest that real-time visibility into ground activities could help operational teams identify developing delays and respond before they escalate.

Assaia develops AI-based technology that monitors aircraft turnarounds, providing airlines, airports and ground handlers with information about ground activities and alerts when operations deviate from schedule.

"Eleven minutes might not sound significant, but across millions of flights, the impact is huge," Hen said. "AI gives teams real-time visibility of what is happening around an aircraft, helping them identify where time is being lost and act before a few minutes become a much bigger delay."

Beyond airline schedules, the report estimates that turnaround overruns consume approximately 6% of available airport stand capacity. At a large airport, Assaia estimates that replacing this lost capacity with additional gates could require approximately $600 million in infrastructure investment.

The company also calculates that eliminating the average turnaround overrun could represent an industry-wide savings opportunity of up to $44 billion annually. That estimate is based on approximately 40 million annual flights and an assumed cost of $100 per minute of delay. The figure represents a theoretical opportunity rather than a projection of achievable savings.

With passenger demand continuing to grow and airport expansion projects requiring significant time and investment, Assaia argues that improving the coordination and predictability of ground operations offers an opportunity to increase capacity using existing infrastructure.

The full 2026 Turnaround Report is available at https://www.assaia.com/turnaroundreport.