Almost Half of Europe’s Airports Reached Pre-pandemic Passenger Levels in Q1 of 2023
Data provided by ACI Europe also show that in the first three months of 2023, passenger traffic was only -10.6 per cent below pre-pandemic levels, AtoZSerwisPlus.com reports.
As for international passenger traffic, it continues to approach pre-pandemic levels at nine per cent, while domestic passenger traffic is lagging behind with -18.5 per cent.
A total of 45 per cent of Europe’s airports by the end of March had recovered or exceeded their pre-pandemic volumes – up from 40 per cent in February.
According to the figures by ACI Europe, EU airports also saw an increase in the volume of passengers by +53.4 per cent ??in the first quarter compared to the same period a year ago.
Portugal, Croatia, Luxembourg & Cyprus Exceeded Their Pre-pandemic Volumes
Compared to pre-pandemic levels, EU+ passenger traffic remained at -11.5 per cent. At the same time, airports in Portugal, Croatia, Luxembourg and Cyprus exceeded their pre-pandemic levels by +15.2 per cent, +12.1 per cent, +9.1 per cent and +8.4 per cent, respectively.
On the other hand, some other airports remained far from a full recovery, with Slovakia remaining still -44.9 per cent under the 2019 mark, as well as Slovenia (-41.2 per cent), Germany (-32.2 per cent), the Czech Republic (-29.7 per cent) and Finland (-26.2 per cent).
Among the best results of the largest EU markets were marked by Spain’s airports with +1.7 per cent, followed by Italy with -6.8 per cent, France with -11.4 per cent and the United Kingdom with -12.9 per cent.
Based on the data of ACI Europe, airports in the rest of Europe also saw an increase of +30.2 per cent in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period of 2022 in terms of passenger traffic.
However, compared to this period with the levels of 2019, passenger traffic in the rest of Europe exceeded the EU+ market by only six per cent.
Considering that airports in Ukraine have now lost all passenger traffic for more than a year at -100 per cent, those in Russia managed to remain above their pre-pandemic volumes in the first quarter by +4.5 per cent. As a result, this made the performance of airports in Uzbekistan increase by +112.5 per cent, followed by Kazakhstan by +55.1 per cent, Armenia by +37.6 per cent and Serbia by +26.3 per cent.
Further data from ACI Europe has also revealed that the airports in the main market of Turkey came close to a full recovery with -4.9 per cent and those in Albania with +91 per cent.
