ACI Europe: “If the recovery does not accelerate significantly, many airports will simply run out of money”

Olivier Jankovec: Stark warning about the future of the airports business in Europe

EUROPE. Industry association Airports Council International (ACI) Europe has warned that the pace of recovery in air travel is far slower than expected since the regional market reopened in mid-June.

Passenger traffic at Europe’s airports fell by -78% year-on-year in July, said ACI Europe, which translates as 208 million passengers lost compared to July 2019. It brings the total passenger loss since the start of the year to 969 million.

Over the past two weeks, said ACI Europe, the pace of the recovery has further slowed down. It said this was due to several states re-imposing travel restrictions, in particular the abrupt decision of the UK to require travellers from Spain to quarantine.

ACI Europe Director General Olivier Jankovec said: “The recovery is far too slow-paced and uncertain. Despite desperate efforts to trim down their costs Europe’s airports are burning cash at the height of the Summer. Revenues are weak because of the combination of low volumes with rebates and incentives to airlines to attract and incentivise air traffic. Considering the seasonality of demand, this does not bode well for the coming months. If the recovery does not accelerate significantly, many airports will simply run out of money.”

ACI Europe also reported first-half traffic results for the region. Passenger numbers fell by -64.2% between January and June, and by -96.4% in the second quarter, compared to the same period last year.

The half-year decrease in passenger traffic was slightly less pronounced in the non-EU market (-59.8%) than in the EU (-65.6%). This mostly reflected less stringent lockdowns in several non-EU countries and domestic air services being less affected than international ones. That was the case in particular for airports in Russia, Norway and to a lesser extent Turkey, said ACI Europe.

The changing traffic patterns resulted in significant changes in the ranking of the major airports in the region.

During the month of June – which saw passenger traffic across the European airport network falling by -93.2% – Moscow Domodedovo became the busiest European airport with 716,800 passengers (-73.3%). The Russian airport was followed by Paris CDG (625,900 passengers, -90.9%), Moscow Sheremetyevo (622,800 passengers, -86.5%), Frankfurt (599,200 passengers, -90.9%) and Istanbul (591,000 passengers, -90.1%).

London-Heathrow (-95.2%), which normally holds the top spot, fell to 11th position, handling just over 350,700 passengers compared to 7.24 million in June last year. Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, the third busiest European airport last year, came down to seventh position (471,800 passengers, -92.7%).

Weekly traffic performance compared to 2019 shows some recovery, but it remains sluggish says ACI Europe

Disruptions in rankings were widespread, and, said ACI Europe, reflected “the lack of alignment between European States in lifting travel restrictions”.

Examples include:

*Athens (-87.9%) and Izmir (-77.7%) welcomed more passengers than Munich (-95.1%);
*Sochi (-70.8%) more than Madrid (-96.5%) and Zurich (-93.1%);
*Bergen (-74.9%) more than Lisbon (-94.7%) and Copenhagen (-94.9%);
*Adana (-73.8%) and Tenerife (-80.6%) more than Dublin (-97.2%);
*Trondheim (-77.3%) and Catania (-91.1%) more than Brussels (-96.4%) and Helsinki (-96%).

June also saw UK airports trailing their peers due to what ACI Europe termed “the overtly restrictive and untargeted travel restrictions enacted by the British government”.

Apart from London Heathrow, other UK airports coming down in the European ranking included:
*London Gatwick (-99.4%) from 10th position last year in June to the 92nd position;
*Manchester (-98.6%) from the 18th position to the 73rd position;
*London-Stansted (-97.8%) from the 24th position to the 59th position;
*Birmingham (-98.9%) from the 48th position to the 125th;
*Newcastle (-99.1%) from 93rd position to 170th.

London Gatwick is among the UK airports to have fallen sharply in the regional June traffic rankings due to government regulations

During the half, 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 decrease of -63.8%, -63.8%, -65.3% and -67.0% respectively.

The airports that reported the lowest decreases in passenger traffic are as follows:

GROUP 1: Moscow Domodedovo (-49.0%), Istanbul Sabiha Gökcen (-54.8%), Moscow Sheremetyevo (-58.3%), Oslo (-58.7%) and Istanbul (-59.9%)

GROUP 2: St Petersburg (-52.7%), Moscow Vnukovo (-54.2%), Gran Canaria (-54.3%), Geneva (-57.7%) and Tenerife South (-57.9%)

GROUP 3: Sochi (-45.7%), Bergen (-52.3%), Minsk (-52.8%), Sofia (-53.1%) and Adana (-54.8%)

GROUP 4: Floro (-18.7%), Bronnoysund (-24.4%), Kristiansund (-27.5%), Leknes (-34.7%) and Sandnessjoen (-35.6%)

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