EU Airports Fail to Surpass London-Heathrow Passenger Records Despite Brexit

In spite of leaving the EU, the impact of COVID-19, the war in Ukraine and the economic impacts of the war in Ukraine, which has led to significant inflation fueled by rising energy prices, the performance of the Heathrow Airport remains strong, AtoZSerwisPlus.com reports.

Even the delays and flight cancellations that passengers faced not only at Heathrow but Europe – wide in 2022, including those in the United Kingdom – Gatwick, Manchester, Stansted, Glasgow, Belfast International and Bristol – the flow of travellers throughout the UK’s biggest airport was not widely impacted.

Despite all these problems, London-Heathrow returned as the busiest European airport with -5.7 per cent in 2022, followed by Istanbul, Paris-CDG with -13.2 per cent, Madrid and Amsterdam-Schiphol with -20.8 per cent.

According to the latest Airports Council International (ACI) Europe report, passenger traffic at the five main European airports increased by +52.4 per cent in the first quarter compared to the same period last year, while volumes remained -11.2 per cent below 2019 levels.

Among these top five airports, Istanbul and Madrid were the only ones to recover their pre-pandemic levels, with +5.9 per cent and zero per cent, respectively. On the other hand, the German centres – Frankfurt (-23.3 per cent) and Munich (-30.1 per cent) did not significantly outperform their peers.

In the first quarter of this year, cargo traffic across the entire European network of airports decreased by -8.7 per cent compared to the same period last year and remained at -7.9 per cent compared to its pre-pandemic level.

During this period, among the busiest European airports for cargo traffic was Frankfurt at -13 per cent compared to the first quarter of 2019, followed by Leipzig with +16 per cent, Amsterdam-Schiphol at -13 per cent, London-Heathrow at -22 per cent and Istanbul at -28 per cent.

Moreover, there was also growth in aircraft movements by +24 per cent in the first quarter in the entire European network of airports, together with airports in the EU+ markets at +25.1 per cent and those in the rest of Europe at +18.2 per cent.

Further, ACI Europe data revealed that during the first quarter of this year, passenger traffic at most European airports experienced a complete recovery as volumes increased by 49 per cent compared to the same period in 2022. This means that passenger traffic was only -10.6 per cent below 2019 levels.