‘Remarkable resilience’: Europe’s airports deliver solid passenger traffic growth in 2018 despite challenging environment

EUROPE. Passenger traffic at Europe’s airports climbed by a solid 6.1% year-on-year in 2018 to a new high of 2.34 billion, ACI Europe reported today.

While growth moderated in 2018 when compared to the strong 2017 performance (up 8.5%), it remained healthy, considering underlying economic trends and geopolitical tensions, said ACI Europe.

The fastest growing airports by category in the year, as reported by ACI Europe (click to enlarge).

ACI Europe Director General Olivier Jankovec said: “Once again, passenger traffic has shown remarkable resilience in 2018, with Europe’s airports welcoming an additional 136.6 million passengers. This means that in just five years, passenger traffic has expanded by more than a third (36%) – with more than 629 million additional passengers – of which 445 million were in the EU alone.

“Managing such growth has been quite a challenge and the strain on airport facilities and staff is real. Capacity and quality are now major issues for an increasing number of airports across Europe. This of course requires investment but also greater operational efficiency, through effective airport-ATM integration and alignment with all other stakeholders.”

Passenger traffic at EU airports posted an average increase of 5.4% in 2018 (compared with 7.7% in 2017), with ATM disruptions, airline strikes and consolidation limiting gains in several markets up to the Summer. Since then growth has been on an upward trend, with December closing up nearly +7%.

The second half showed robust growth in many locations (click to enlarge).

Airports in the Eastern and Southern parts of the EU achieved the best performances, along with those in Austria and Luxembourg. The following capital and primary airports posted double-digit growth: Vilnius (30.9%), Bratislava (18.1%), Riga (15.7%), Budapest (13.5%), Tallinn (13.4%), Malta (13.2%), Warsaw Chopin (12.8%), Milan Malpensa (11.5%), Luxembourg (12.2%), Athens (11.2%), Vienna (10.8%) and Helsinki (10.4%).

Conversely, the weakest results came from airports in Sweden (where passenger traffic stalled in the wake of the introduction of an aviation tax) and the UK (a reflection of mounting Brexit fears on the economy, noted ACI Europe).

Meanwhile, non-EU airports saw passenger traffic climb by 8.3% (compared to 7.7% in 2017). However, unlike in the EU, growth followed a downward trend through the year, from an impressive 14.6% in January to 3.5% in December. This, said ACI Europe, was mainly due to domestic demand at Turkish airports being affected by the country’s economic woes (total passenger traffic growth at Turkish airports was just 0.9% in Q4), weaker demand at Norwegian airports and growth coming to halt at Icelandic airports towards the end of the year (down 0.1% in December).

The top-performing airports by category in Q4 (click to enlarge).

Against this, airports in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Israel, Albania, Northern Macedonia, Montenegro and Bosnia Herzegovina grew above the non-EU average. The best individual airport performances came from Kutaisi (52.5%), Antalya (21.1%), Tbilisi (20.4%), Kiev (19.4%), Kharkiv (19.3%), Bodrum (18.8%), Rostov (18.8%), Moscow-Vnukovo (18.4%), Skopje (15.5%), Pristina (14.7%) and Moscow Sheremetevo (14.3%).

Europe’s five busiest airports) registered a 4.8% rise in passenger traffic in 2018, down from 5.5% the preceding year. This lower performance compared to the European average reflected mainly capacity limitations, intensifying hub competition and hub by-pass developments as well as airline strikes.

Frankfurt achieved the highest growth in this league (up 7.8% to 69.51 million passengers), on the back of a traffic diversification strategy. Istanbul Atatürk posted the second best performance (6.4% for 68.19 million passengers) but saw passenger traffic slowing down significantly towards the end of the year (only 1% in Q4).

Olivier Jankovec: “In just five years, passenger traffic has expanded by more than a third.”

The Turkish hub was followed by Paris CDG in growth terms (4% to 72.22 million passengers), where strikes at the home-based network carrier took their toll. Meanwhile, capacity constraints more than halved growth at Amsterdam Schiphol (3.7% compared to 7.7%) and also limited gains at London Heathrow (2.7%), which remained the busiest airport in Europe, with 80.12 million passengers.

 

While performances also varied significantly between regional airports, many posted impressive passenger traffic gains in 2018. These included Poznan (33.7%), Sibiu (32.2%), Memmingerberg (26.5%), Seville (24.9%), Kefallinia (21.6%), Mikonos (17.1%), Genoa (16.7%), Krakow (16%), Varna (15.9%), Naples (15.8%), Linz (15.7%), Ostend (15.7%), Valencia (15.2%), Palermo (14.8%), Toulon (13%) and Nantes (12.6%). However, smaller regional airports (below 5 million passengers per annum) underperformed the European average, growing by 5.1%.

Traffic by category

During 2018, 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 +5.5%, 6.7%, 6.5% and 6.7%.

The airports which reported the highest increases in passenger traffic during 2018 (compared with 2017) are as follows:

Group 1: Antalya (21.1%), Moscow Sheremetyevo (14.3%), Lisbon (8.9%), Istanbul Sabiha Gökcen (8.8%) and Madrid (8.4%)

Group 2: Kiev (19.4%), Moscow Vnukovo (18.4%), Budapest (13.5%), Warsaw (12.8%) and St Petersburg (12.1%)

Group 3: Seville (24.9%), Krakow (16%), Naples (+15.8%), Riga (+15.7%) and Valencia (15.2%)

Group 4: Kutaisi (52.5%), Poznan (33.7%), Sibiu (32.2%), Vilnius (30.9%) and Memmingerberg (26.5%).

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