Passenger traffic across the European airports rose by almost half (48%) in February against the same month last year when travel remained constrained by Omicron-related restrictions.
But overall numbers remained 12% below pre-pandemic February 2019 levels despite 40% of Europe’s airports either recovering or exceeding their pre-pandemic volumes.
The growth recorded by European airport trade body ACI Europe was predominantly driven by international passenger traffic (+58%) with domestic traffic returning at a much slower pace (+22%).
Airports in Turkey (-6.8%) saw their performance affected by the devastating earthquakes that hit the country and neighbouring Syria.
Meanwhile, airports in Russia (+4.1%) remained above their pre-pandemic volumes as passenger traffic kept shifting to domestic and non-EU markets.
Ten national markets achieved or exceeded a full recovery in February. The best performances came from airports in Portugal (+18.9%), Luxembourg (+10.9%), Cyprus (+9.7%), Malta (+5.3%) and Bulgaria (+4.9%).
Conversely, airports in Slovakia (-46.7%), Slovenia (-38.5%) and Germany (-33%), the Czech Republic (-29.9%) and Sweden (-28.3%) remained the farthest from achieving a full recovery.
“This reflected a mix of factors including the impact of the war in Ukraine, the lack of penetration or loss of low cost carrier traffic and industrial action,” ACI Europe said.
Airports in Spain (+2.2%) posted the best results followed by those in France (-7.3%), Italy (-10.6%) and the UK (-12.9%).
Among top five European airports, only Istanbul and Madrid fully recovered their pre-pandemic (February 2019) levels,
Heathrow returned to being the busiest European airport in February with passenger volumes up by 81.6% year-on-year, allowing the London hub to reduce the gap with its pre-pandemic volumes (-5.1%).
Istanbul wascame second, followed by Paris CDG, Madrid and Amsterdam Schiphol, which remained 11.9% below its pre-pandemic volumes.