ACI Europe has released a preliminary air traffic report for August 2025 showing an uptake of +4.9 per cent this year compared with August 2024. This was driven primarily by international passenger traffic at +5.6 per cent, while domestic traffic only grew by +1.6 per cent. Compared to pre-pandemic levels (2019), passenger volumes have grown by seven per cent.
Overall, airports in the EU+ area results were below the continental average, increasing by +4 per cent, however Poland, Slovenia, and Romania achieve double digit growth. Conversely, Latvia, Estonia, and Iceland achieved negative growth.
Airports in the rest of Europe have grown faster than average with an increase of +8.8 per cent, with Moldova, Israel, and Bosnia & Herzegovina achieving above average results. Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Uzbekistan, and Serbia were below the average.
The medium airports that reported the highest growth were Chișinău RMO (+46.6 per cent), Bournemouth BOH (+32.1 per cent), Trieste TRS (+27.3 per cent), Gaziantep GZT (+26.1 per cent), and Wroclaw WRO (+22.9 per cent).
For small airports, the highest growth was attributed to Antwerp ANR (+769.4 per cent), Bucharest BBU (+118.6 per cent), Syros Island JSY (+105.3 per cent), Córdoba ODB (+71.7 per cent), and Kastamonu KFS (+70.5 per cent). However, despite demonstrating strong growth, the small airport category was the only one to not recover pre-pandemic levels, sitting at -20.1 per cent.
On the cargo side, freight traffic across Europe decreased by -5.8 per cent, compared to +7 per cent pre-pandemic. The strongest results came from Liège (+29 per cent), Madrid (+11.4 per cent), and Milan Malpensa (+6 per cent).
Photo: ACI Europe
