Passenger traffic at Europe’s airports returned to within 8% of 2019 levels in April, with a 21% increase on April 2022, latest date from airports association ACI Europe reveals.
Traffic in the first three months of this year remained 11% down on the first quarter of 2019. Air traffic in April was boosted by Easter this year, but the holiday also fell in April last year and in 2019, allowing a valid comparison.
ACI Europe director general Olivier Jankovec hailed the figures as “remarkable” at a time when “the increase in air fares is more than six times above consumer price inflation”.
However, he noted “significant performance variations” across Europe, with major network carriers such as the Lufthansa Group and British Airways owner IAG continuing to maintain “tight capacity management”.
Jankovic noted just under half (47%) of Europe’s airports recovered to pre-pandemic passenger volumes in April – largely airports serving low-cost carriers carrying leisure passengers and visiting friends and relations (VFR) traffic.
Passenger numbers across the EU’s airports returned to 92% of the 2019 level in April, 19% up on the same month last year. However, airports in Greece and Portugal saw an 11% increase on 2019 and Cyprus a 12% rise.
Traffic in Spain was almost 3% up on 2019 and passenger numbers in Italy 1% higher. Palma de Mallorca saw almost 9% more traffic this April than in 2019, as did Tenerife, and Malaga 11% more.
The UK was the strongest of the major outbound markets, with air passenger traffic 9% down on April 2019, while France was 13% down and Germany 26% down.
Heathrow was the best performing of Europe’s five biggest airports, handling 6.4 million passengers in April, up 26% year on year and just 6% down on April 2019.
The airport reclaimed its pre-pandemic position as Europe’s busiest last October.
Istanbul International was Europe’s second-busiest airport, with traffic 11% higher than in 2019, Paris Charles de Gaulle third with traffic 16% below the pre-pandemic level, Amsterdam Schiphol fourth with traffic also 16% down, and Madrid fifth – with traffic 21% up year on year and 3.5% down on 2019.
Aircraft movements across the European airport network were up by 11% year on year but remained 10% down on 2019.
Airline association Iata reported global air traffic reached 90.5% of the 2019 level in April and international air traffic 84%, with European traffic at 94%.