A full recovery in European air passenger travel has been pushed back by a year to 2025.
European airports trade body ACI Europe issued a revised passenger traffic forecast showing that volumes in 2023 are set to fall to 9% below pre-pandemic 2019 levels.
This means a return to levels seen before Covid-19 will not occur in 2024 as previously forecast in May.
Continued geopolitical tensions and the war in Ukraine will keep impacting several markets and dominate “downside risks”.
Deteriorating macro-economics and inflationary pressures are also set to weigh on demand, with air fares having increased sharply throughout the final two quarters of the year.
Higher regulatory costs will also result in sustained inflationary pressures on air fares.
Tight capacity management mainly by full service carriers and the permanence of travel restrictions to China will also limit further traffic growth, according to the organisation.
The negative passenger traffic forecast will be “partially compensated” by a degree of resilience in leisure demand and the continued expansion of ultra-low cost carriers.
The end of the airport slots waiver granted to airlines as of next summer should also ease supply pressures, the Brussels-based group said.
Director general Olivier Jankovec said: “Passenger traffic has made a strong comeback since last spring and has so far been very resilient in the face of increasing geopolitical and economic headwinds.
“However, we now expect the passenger traffic recovery to level off moving forwards, with the timeline pushed to 2025 before Europe’s airports finally get back to where they stood before Covid-19 hit.
“Next year, we will still miss 220 million passengers, meaning our volumes will only match 2017 levels.
“All this reflects a mix of determinants with more negatives than positives – along with significant downside risks.”
He added: “It is becoming an increasingly mixed bag of impacts and outcomes.
“We expect several airport markets – especially those relying predominantly on tourism – to exceed their pre-pandemic passenger volumes as soon as next year. But many others will not fare so well and take much longer to recover.
“On the longer horizon, once the last impacts Covid-19 have finally departed, European airports will face higher levels of risk than in the past. Our regulators must reflect and fully account for this.”