EUROPE. Passenger traffic at Europe’s airports climbed by +3.6% year-on-year in May, ACI Europe reported today.
The growth figure was entirely attributable to the EU market, with airports there reporting passenger traffic growth of +5.5%. The non-EU market saw traffic dropping by -2.5%, the first decline in traffic growth for these airports since 2009.
ACI Europe Director General Olivier Jankovec said: “Declining passenger traffic in Russia and Turkey is now weighing down on the overall performance of European airports – here we clearly see the impact of increasing geopolitical and terrorist risks.
“Some of the leisure demand is shifting towards the EU market – contributing to boosting EU passenger traffic performance for airports in Portugal, Spain and Cyprus in particular – and baseline fundamentals generally remain positive for EU airports on the back of improving economic conditions and affordable prices for oil. Airports in Ireland, Denmark, Luxembourg, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Lithuania all registered double-digit growth in May. Conversely, there is significant weakness in other parts of the EU – especially Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovenia.”
Jankovec added: “The recent Brexit vote is mainly about medium to long-term risks concerning the integrity of the European single aviation market. We do not expect it to have a significant impact on overall European air traffic levels this summer. However, the political instability and uncertainty it has created in the UK and beyond, is already hurting business confidence and might end up doing the same for consumer confidence – this could affect demand for air transport later in the year.”
During May, airports welcoming more than 25 million passengers per year (Group 1), airports welcoming between 10 and 25 million passengers (Group 2), airports welcoming between 5 and 10 million passengers (Group 3) and airports welcoming less than 5 million passengers per year (Group 4) reported an average adjustment of +0.7%, +5.5%, +9.7% and +3.7% respectively.
The airports which reported the highest increases in passenger traffic during May 2016 (compared with May 2015) are as follows:
Group 1: Barcelona El-Prat (+12.3%), Dublin (+11.6%), Copenhagen (+10.8%), Istanbul Sabiha Gökcen (+10.6%), Rome Fiumicino (+7.7%)
Group 2: Gran Canaria (+18.5%), Cologne-Bonn (+13.9%), Budapest (+13.5%), Tel Aviv (+12.9%) and Malaga (+12.2%)
Group 3: Berlin Schoenefeld (+43.0%), Larnaca (+27.0%), Ibiza (+20.8%), Bucharest (+18.9%) and Porto (+16.6%)
Group 4: Oradea (+22,417.7%), Palanga (+97.7%), Kharkiv (+56.0%), Ohrid (+44.6%) and Bourgas (+40.4%)
