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EUROPE. Passenger traffic at Europe’s airports climbed by +5% year-on-year in February, driven by a +6.2% surge in EU airport traffic.
There were strong double-digit growth contributions from airports in Greece, Ireland, Belgium, Portugal, Romania, Hungary and Lithuania.
Meanwhile, in what ACI Europe described as “a continued reversal of fortune”, non-EU airports posted a much lower rate of passenger traffic growth (+1.3%), mainly due to traffic losses in Ukraine and Russia as well as the impact of severe weather conditions in parts of Turkey.
ACI Europe Director General Olivier Jankovec said: “EU passenger traffic keeps outperforming weak economic growth, building upon last year’s dynamic trend. The outlook is now getting even brighter, as lower oil prices, the ECB’s Quantitative Easing policy and improving consumer confidence should all help further support demand for air travel in the coming months.
“Conversely, Russian airports are generally seeing a sharp decrease in passenger traffic – with the country entering recession this year for the first time since 2009 and international sanctions taking their toll. This situation is also affecting freight traffic across Europe, as well as the passenger traffic performance of other European airports that are particularly exposed to Russian demand.”
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During the month of February, airports welcoming more than 25 million passengers per year (Group 1), airports welcoming between 10 and 25 million passengers (Group 2), airports welcoming between 5 and 10 million passengers (Group 3) and airports welcoming less than 5 million passengers per year (Group 4) reported an average adjustment +2.9%, +6.8%, +6.3% and +6.8%.
The airports which reported the highest increases in passenger traffic are as follows:
Group 1: Madrid (+12.0%), Rome Fiumicino (+9.1%), London Gatwick (+7.1%), Antalya (+5.4%), Amsterdam (+4.9%)
Group 2: Athens (+24.7%), London Stansted (+24.6%), Brussels (+18.5%), Lisbon (+17.9%) and Dublin (+16.7%)
Group 3: Milan Linate (+18.2%), Porto (+17.7%), Bucharest Otopeni (+15.8%), Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg (+15.0%) and Glasgow (+13.8%)
Group 4: Chania (+94.4%), Mikonos (+46.4%), Ostrava (+40.2%), Santorini/Thira (+37.8%) and Volgograd (+35.7%)
The ‘ACI Europe Airport Traffic Report – February 2015’ includes 209 airports in total representing more than 88% of European air passenger traffic.
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How European airport traffic growth broke down by country in February |
