The European aviation sector has fully recovered from the difficult corona period.
Airports in Europe had 0.4 percent more passengers in the first half of this year than in the first half of 2019.
This was reported by the European trade association for airports, ACI Europe, in a message on Wednesday.
Olivier Jankovec, Director General of ACI Europe, says: “With total passenger traffic finally exceeding 2019 levels over a full six-month period, our industry has definitively turned away from the pandemic.” Passenger traffic in the European airport network increased by 9 percent in the first half of 2024, compared to the same period last year.
International air traffic (to and from Europe) remained the main driver of growth, with a plus of 10.3 percent.
This grew twice as fast as domestic/European traffic (plus 4.2 percent).
ACI Europe boss Jankovec also makes a comment: despite the good figures, the European airport market has become extremely fragmented.
Only 53 percent of airports saw a full recovery in June from their pre-pandemic passenger volume.
The growth is mainly due to holiday transport (including VFR, visits to family and friends, ed.), ultra-low cost carriers and Turkish Airlines.
Looking at the peak summer months of Q3 and beyond, Jankovec adds: “We are heading into our best summer ever in terms of passenger traffic, even as the unprecedented global IT outages from earlier this month combined with recurring Air Traffic Management capacity shortages and aircraft delivery delays are all taking their toll on airport traffic. What happens next is largely dependent on whether demand remains resilient and sustained as autumn arrives.” (Shutterstock).
