Despite a steady rebound in the first half of the year, increasing 28.3% compared to 2022, passenger traffic at Europe’s airport faces “significant downside risks and much uncertainty” past the summer holiday period, according to airport trade body ACI Europe.
“So far, demand has remained extremely resilient in the face of lasting inflationary pressures and record increases in airfares since the beginning of the year. But, looking ahead and past the peak summer months, we do see significant downside risks and much uncertainty. These include the prospect of deteriorating macroeconomics for the Eurozone and the UK as well as initial signals that discretionary spending might start decreasing and that pandemic‑savings buffers are exhausted”, warned ACI Europe Director General Olivier Jankovec.
1. Inching closer to full recovery
Passenger traffic across the European airport network increased by 28.3% in H1 2023 compared to the same period last year, with international traffic (+32.2%) growing at twice the rate of domestic traffic (+16.6%). The pace of growth eased in Q2 (+16.3%) compared to Q1 (+49%), reflecting the fact that Covid-19 restrictions on intra-European travel had largely been lifted as of April last year.
When compared to pre-pandemic levels, passenger volumes stood at -7.7% in H1, steadily improving over the period from -11% in January to -5.9% in June.
There are significant variations in performance across national markets, and volumes still remain below their pre-pandemic levels for more than half (52%) of Europe’s airports.
Olivier Jankovec, Director General ACI Europe
While overall traffic at Europe’s airport is inching closer to full recovery, more than half are still below pre-pandemic levels. “Apart from the lasting impact of the war in Ukraine on some markets, this is largely due to recovery patterns becoming structural”, explained Jankovec. “These include the impressive yet selective expansion of ultra-low-cost carriers and relative retrenchment of full-service carriers along with the prominence of leisure and VFR [Visiting Friends & Relatives] demand as well as some domestic traffic shifting to other transport modes.”
2. Performance gaps amongst national markets
Airports in the EU+ market (EU, EEA, Switzerland and UK) and in the rest of Europe (Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Georgia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Russia, Serbia, Türkiye, Ukraine and Uzbekistan) grew passenger traffic at a similar pace in H1 compared to last year. But when compared to H1 2019 levels, airports in the rest of Europe (-2.1%) came closest to a full recovery, with the EU+ market (-8.7%) lagging behind.
In June, the best passenger traffic performances in the EU+ market came from airports in Greece (+14.2%), Iceland (+9.3%), Luxembourg (+8.7%), Portugal (+8.1%) and Poland (+6.3%). Conversely, airports in Finland (-32.2%), Slovenia (-31.9%), Germany (-21.7%), Bulgaria (-20.5%) and Sweden (-18.8%) remained well below their pre-pandemic levels.
Looking at the rest of Europe, the best passenger traffic performance in June came from airports in Albania (+114.6%), buoyed by ultra-low-cost carrier expansion, followed by those in Uzbekistan (+91.7%), Armenia (+87.6%) and Kazakhstan (+43.6%), which benefited from Russian traffic shifting away from the EU+ market.
3. Larger airports vs. regional and smaller airports
Passenger traffic at the top 5 European airports (London-Heathrow, Istanbul, Paris CDG, Amsterdam Schiphol and Madrid) in H1 remained 8.9% below their pre-pandemic levels, thus underperforming the European average.
Meanwhile, regional and smaller airports (with less than 10 million yearly passengers) fully recovered (+0.4%) 2019 passenger volumes in H1 and closed the month of June at +2.2%. However, there were also significant variations amongst these airports, with the ones serving popular tourism destinations and relying on low-cost-carriers often posting impressive performances.
