Brussels, 31 July 2024: European airport trade body ACI EUROPE today released its air traffic report for the month of June, as well as Quarter 2 (Q2) and the first half (H1) of 2024.
Passenger traffic across the European airport network increased by +9% in H1 compared to the same period last year, with the pace of growth in Q2 (+8%) remaining very dynamic – although easing somewhat compared to Q1 (+10.2%). International traffic kept being the main growth driver in H1 (+10.3%), expanding at more than twice the rate of domestic traffic (+4.2%).
This brought H1 passenger volumes at +0.4% above H1 2019 levels – finally confirming a full recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic for the airport industry.
Olivier Jankovec, Director General of ACI EUROPE commented: “As overall passenger traffic finally made it above 2019 levels over a full 6-month period, our industry has now turned the corner on the pandemic. But beyond these headline figures, the European airport market has become extremely fragmented in terms of traffic performance – with only 53% of airports having actually fully recovered their pre-pandemic passenger volumes in June. This reflects structural changes in both demand and supply – with leisure & VFR1 passengers and Ultra-Low Cost Carriers along with Turkish Airlines very much driving growth. This also reflects the dynamism of aviation markets in parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia along with geopolitics’ on-going impact on specific markets, for better or worse depending on their location.”
London Heathrow remained the busiest European airport with 8 million passengers in H1 (+7.4% vs. H1 2023 | +2.8% vs. H1 2019), followed by Istanbul which handled 38.1 million passengers (+6.9% vs. H1 2023 | +18.1% vs. H1 2019).
