Some airports are continuing to struggle to recover from the pandemic amid structural changes to the European aviation market, a new report reveals.
Overall passenger traffic across Europe’s airports during the summer peak month of August was just 3.4% below the same month in pre-Covid 2019, with a rise of 11.6% year-on-year.
However, trade body Airports Council International (ACI) Europe projected that airports will continue to report significant variations in their passenger traffic performance – at least in the medium-term.
Despite this, the organisation expects passenger numbers this year to hit 95.5% of pre-pandemic volumes, up from 91% in its previous forecast in December 2022.
Full passenger traffic is now expected next year rather than in 2025 as previously forecast.
Passenger levels at Europe’s airports is set to stand at +1.4% over pre-pandemic 2019 in 2024 rather than -2% originally expected.
Volumes are now set to rise to 9.2% above 2019 by 2027.
The predictions take into account the strong summer performance and continued resilience of demand, despite lasting inflationary pressures, persistently higher air fares and increased geopolitical tensions.
Structural changes identified by ACI Europe include heightened demand for leisure travel and visiting friends and relatives (VFR) and the “remarkable yet selective expansion” of ultra-low cost carriers and relative retrenchment of full service airlines, with the notable exception of Turkish Airlines.
“This tends to favour secondary and regional airports rather than larger hubs,” according to the trade body.
ACI Europe director general Olivier Jankovec said: “What we are seeing is that not all airports are recovering at the same pace.
“While close to 50% of Europe’s airports have now exceeded their pre-pandemic passenger volumes – with some even experiencing exponential growth – all others remain below, with some still struggling to recover more dynamically.
“This means that many airports might not get back to their pre-pandemic volumes before 2026, or even later.”
He added: “In the past, when faced with systemic shocks such as 9/11 or the global financial crisis, most airports tended to recover at a similar pace. Not this time.
“This is down to the war in Ukraine and resulting restrictions on air traffic impacting certain markets, along with structural changes in the aviation market post-Covid-19.”