European airports handled an additional 660 million passengers in the first half of 2022, according to Airports Council International (ACI) Europe’s latest air traffic report.
Passenger traffic in the European airport network jumped by +247% in H1 2022 compared to the same period last year – resulting in airports across the continent handling an additional 660 million passengers.
“These numbers speak for themselves,” said Olivier Jankovec, Director General of ACI Europe. “If COVID-19 caused an unprecedented collapse in passenger traffic for Europe’s airports, the rebound we have experienced this spring – especially in the EU+ market – is equally extraordinary. The fact that volumes across the continent still remained -28.3% below pre-pandemic levels for the first half of the year should not eclipse the sheer and unprecedented unleashing of pent-up demand that has occurred since March.”
According to the association, the increase was predominantly driven by international traffic (+381.2%) rather than domestic traffic (88.5%). It was also very much concentrated in Q2, which followed the easing as of March of the Omnicron-related restrictions for travel within Europe as well as for an increasing number of external markets.
The month of June was the closest so far to full passenger traffic recovery with the month closing at -17.4% against pre-pandemic (June 2019) levels. This marked the strongest monthly performance since pre-pandemic reporting in February 2020 with recovery continued to be driven by leisure and VFR demand, as evidenced from the results achieved by airports in countries relying heavily on tourism.
Airports in Greece (a holiday hotspot) and Luxembourg were the only ones to fully recover their pre-pandemic passenger traffic volumes in June. Meanwhile airports in Portugal came close to a full recovery, as did hubs in Lithuania and Norway.
At the other end of the spectrum, airports in Slovenia, Finland, Bulgaria, Czechia and Latvia struggled to recover more dynamically, notably due to the impact of the war in Ukraine and related international sanctions on Russia. Among the largest EU+ markets, airports in Spain and Italy posted the best results, followed by airports in France, the UK and and Germany.
The top five European airports (-17%) and large air transport hubs kept under performing smaller and regional airport hubs (-6.6%) in June, when compared to pre-pandemic (2019) passenger traffic levels. This is most likely due to travel restrictions on selected Asian market – in particular China.
There was also good news from a number of regional airports serving popular tourism destinations and/ or relying on low-fare carriers, as they exceeded pre-pandemic (2019) traffic levels in June, including: Santorini (+72.5%), Tirana (+59.3%), Zadar (+39. 1%), Funchal (+27.9%), Mykonos (+12.9%), Kauna (+8.1%), Menorca (+6.5%), Billund (+5.5%), Olbia (+4.7%) and Bergamo (+1.1%).
In the cargo sector, freight traffic across Europe made limited gains in H1 at -0.8% compared to the same period last year. This reflects the wider impact of the war in Ukraine on supply chains, which sent freight traffic on a downward trend as of last February – with the month of June closing at -4.5%.
