Passenger traffic across Europe rises in January

Passenger traffic across Europe’s airports increased by +4.6% in January compared to the same month a year ago, according to the latest figures released today by ACI EUROPE.

The trade body reveals that airports in the non-EU market “significantly outperformed” the EU+ market during the month based on growth of +8.8% and +3.6% respectively.

The gains, it says, were markedly driven by international passenger traffic (+5.5%), with domestic passengers increasing by +1.8% and remaining -8.1% below pre pandemic (2019) levels.

Olivier Jankovec, director general of ACI EUROPE, notes: “January usually gives us the first indication of traffic performance for the year – and the data we published today would normally be seen as evidence of resilient demand and positive prospects for the months ahead.

“But the conflict which has erupted last week in the Middle East is upending traffic forecasts, making the outlook highly uncertain for now.

“The Middle East, and in particular the Gulf, has over the past 20 years become an important part of connectivity and traffic volumes for many European airports – from larger regional ones to major hubs.

“This is not just about direct connectivity and traffic to the Middle East, but also indirect connectivity via that region to Asia-Pacific. This means that even if part of the underlying leisure-driven demand could shift to other destinations or other direct and indirect routings to Asia-Pacific, that traffic is simply not substitutable.”   

NATIONAL MARKETS KEEP DIVERGING

As was also the case over the past years, January saw continued disparities in national and individual airport markets performance – reflecting a mix of factors including the primacy of generally resilient leisure demand, the impact of aviation taxes, geopolitics and competitive pressures resulting from increased airline market power.

Within the EU+ market, airports located in the East and/or periphery of the bloc achieved double digit passenger traffic growth: Slovakia (+98.0%), Slovenia (+20.8%), Malta (+17.2%), Czechia (+13.5%), Cyprus (+13.3%), Ireland (+13.8%), Bulgaria (+12.6%) and Poland (+11.8%).

While at the other end of the spectrum, airports in the Netherlands (-7.3%) where hit by adverse weather, while those in Iceland (-4.3%) and Latvia (-3.2%) faced airline capacity cuts.

Amongst the largest EU+ markets, airports in Italy (+4.1%) posted the best results, followed by those in Germany (+3.5%), Spain (+2.6%), France (+2.1%) and the UK (+2%).

Within the Non-EU+ market, the highest passenger traffic increases came from airports in Moldova (+35.4%), North Macedonia (+31%), Israel (+24.4%), Uzbekistan (+23.9%), Georgia (+16%), Armenia (+10.3%) and Turkey (+9.4%).

Meanwhile, airports in Montenegro (-1.7%) and Kazakhstan (+0.1%) significantly underperformed.

ISTANBUL TOPS RANKING FOR ABSOLUTE GROWTH

Istanbul (+6.4%) replaced capacity-constrained London Heathrow (+2.2%) as the busiest European airport in January, welcoming 6.9 million passengers (vs. 6.5 million passengers for London Heathrow), with an average of over 220,000 passengers per day.

In another shift, Madrid (+3.5%) took the third spot from Paris CDG (+0.7%), with the French hub being followed by Amsterdam (-9.1%) whose performance reflects the disruptive impact of severe weather at the beginning of the month.

While remaining outside of the top 5 league, Frankfurt (+4.9%) saw dynamic passenger growth. The German hub came in the seventh spot after Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen (+14.3%), which registered the best performance amongst Major airports.