Good start to year for host of European airports

A host of European airports today released their traffic data for the first month of 2024, with Barcelona, Copenhagen, London Stansted, Madrid and Manchester among those reporting impressive upturns in traffic.

Aena reports that 18.6 million passengers (+10.3%) passed through its Spanish airport network in January 2024, Madrid (+8%) and Barcelona (+13.9%) leading the way.

In total, 4.7 million passengers were handled at Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport and 3.5 million at Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport.

Indeed, Aena notes that “during the month of January, passenger records were broken” at Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas, Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat, Palma de Mallorca, Gran Canaria, Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernández, Málaga-Costa del Sol, Seville, Tenerife Norte-Ciudad de La Laguna, Tenerife Sur, Valencia, Asturias, Bilbao, Ibiza, El Hierro, Fuerteventura, César Manrique-Lanzarote, La Gomera, Ceuta and Melilla airports.

In Denmark, more than 1.7 million passengers (+7%) passed through Copenhagen Airport during the opening month of 2024, just over 115,000 more than in January of last year.

Long-haul destinations in Asia, the Middle East and North America saw strong passenger growth.

“Generally, the winter months are a less busy period for the airport than the summer months, but the appetite for travel clearly continues to grow,” said Peter Krogsgaard, chief commercial officer of Copenhagen Airports A/S.

“January was a good month, with passengers increasingly choosing to fly out of Copenhagen Airport. This is a positive trend, which we are very pleased with.”

London, Oslo and Stockholm were the three most popular destinations in January – 17% of all passengers travelled between Copenhagen and one of these three cities.

Meanwhile, in the UK, Manchester Airports Group (MAG) served 3.9 million passengers across its airports in January to equal its 2019 figures for January 2019.

It states that London Stansted and Manchester Airport both recorded their busiest ever Januarys, with their passenger totals equalling 101% of 2019 levels.

London Stansted served 1.9 million passengers across the month, up 6.9%, and Manchester Airport served 1.8 million passengers – up 9.5% year-on-year.

East Midlands saw its monthly traffic increase by 30% year-on-year, with 177,000 passengers travelling through the airport, which was equal to 82% of 2019 levels.