EUROPE. Passenger traffic across Europe continued to grow strongly in May with a +8.2% year-on-year increase, according to trade association Airports Council International (ACI) Europe.
Both the EU and non-EU markets fuelled the growth, with traffic up +7.7% and +9.9% respectively.
The Southern and Eastern parts of the EU outperformed the bloc’s average – with a total of 15 countries reporting double digit growth. These were: Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Slovenia.
In the non-EU bloc, Russian airports performed strongly, as did airports in Iceland, Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova. Turkey’s airports reported a “mixed yet gradually improving performance”, ACI Europe said, which was primarily attributable to “the recovery of the Turkish tourism sector and in particular the return of Russian tourists”.
Among the top 20 European airports, Antalya (+36.5%), Moscow Domodedovo (+19.1%) and Moscow Sheremetyevo (+17.2%) registered the highest increase in passenger traffic.
Amsterdam Schiphol posted the strongest performance (+8.1%) among the five biggest European airports, followed by Frankfurt (+5.7%), Paris Charles de Gaulle (+3.7%), London Heathrow (+2.9%) and Istanbul Ataturk (+0.2%).
During May, airports welcoming over 25 million passengers per year (Group 1); between 10 and 25 million passengers (Group 2); between 5 and 10 million passengers (Group 3); and less than 5 million passengers per year (Group 4) reported average adjustments of +5.1%, +11.8%, +8.8% and +10.8%.
The airports which reported the highest increases in passenger traffic during May 2017 (compared with May 2016) are as follows:
Group 1: Moscow Domodedovo (+19.1%), Moscow Sheremetyevo (+17.2%), Manchester (+12.1%), Amsterdam (+8.1%) and Barcelona (+6.9%)
Group 2: Antalya (+36.5%), St Petersburg (+26%), Warsaw (+22.1%), Prague (+21.1%) and Birmingham (+19.5%)
Group 3: Kiev (+28.8%), Naples (+26.6%), Keflavik (+22.8%), Faro (+16.9%) and Porto (+15.1%)
Group 4: Bucharest Aurel Vlaicu (+821.4%), Nis (+357.3%), Oradea (+219.6%), Arad (+123.5%) and Kutaisi (+100.7%)
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