If the thought of a delayed boarding call makes your palms sweat, you're not alone — and now there's data to back up which European routes test nerves the most. AirAdvisor, a company specialising in airline compensation, has crunched numbers on 26 of the continent's busiest corridors to build its Nervous Flyer Score, and the winner (or loser, depending on your mindset) is the hop between Barcelona El Prat and Amsterdam Schiphol, which scored a hefty 75.1%.

The ranking weighs delays, cancellations, exposure to bad weather and flight times — the ingredients that tend to make already-anxious passengers even twitchier. Notably, turbulence and safety risk were left out of the equation; this is about predictability, not danger. London Heathrow to Amsterdam (63.8%) and Manchester to Dublin (63.4%) rounded out the top three, with the Manchester–Dublin route reportedly posting the highest delay rate of any route in the top 20.

Further down the list you'll find Lisbon to Madeira (61.4%) — unsurprising given Atlantic weather around the island's famously tricky airport — plus Paris CDG to Nice, the Norwegian domestic pairings Oslo–Stavanger and Oslo–Trondheim, Barcelona to Rome Fiumicino, Heathrow to Frankfurt, and Madrid to Heathrow.

AirAdvisor's CEO Anton Radchenko is quick to point out the point isn't to scare people off these routes. It's about knowing where uncertainty is more likely so you can plan around it. As he put it in an interview with Euronews, fear of flying rarely comes down to one thing — it's the long gate waits, last-minute cancellations and dodgy weather piling up on each other.

The practical advice is genuinely useful. Book direct where you can, so a missed connection isn't in the cards. Pick earlier departures, which leave the airline (and you) room to rebook later in the day if things go sideways. Skip tight layovers entirely — sprinting through a terminal does nothing good for anyone's heart rate. Check the weather at both ends before you fly, switch on notifications in the airline's app, and arrive at the airport with time to spare rather than running on adrenaline.

Once you're airborne, the tips get simpler: tell the cabin crew if you're anxious (they deal with this constantly and can often help), load up your entertainment, and try basic breathing or grounding techniques if turbulence or nerves kick in. Perhaps most reassuring is the reminder that delays and weather diversions are a completely normal part of aviation — an inconvenience, not a red flag.

For anyone booking a city break between Spain and the Netherlands this year, this isn't a reason to cancel — it's a nudge to book the morning flight, build a buffer into your plans, and travel with a bit of slack in the schedule. Fully published by Travel Tomorrow.