Airports in Iceland, Greece, and Portugal are the fastest recovering from the pandemic, with the recovery across Europe still lagging significantly compared to 2019 by double digits.

The figures are presented by ACI Europe (Airports Council International) based on October data across Europe, noting that compared to October 2019 passenger traffic at European airports remains down 12% and is the first time since last spring that the recovery of passenger traffic across Europe on a monthly basis stopped (s.p. at minus 12% was the traffic last September as well).

Compared to pre-pandemic levels, in October 2019 :

-Only airports in Iceland, Greece, and Portugal achieved an increase in passenger traffic of +8%, +7.5%, and 3.8% respectively as reported by ACI Europe, while Bulgaria remained at exactly the same levels, however achieving full recovery. For Greece, Athens airport had a marginally negative sign at -0.5% compared to the pre-pandemic period, however, regional airports due to increased traffic recorded an increase.

– The longer tourist season and the addition of routes by low-cost carriers boosted specific European markets, resulting in airports in Luxembourg (-1.4%), Spain (-2.9%), Ireland (-5.9% ), Italy (-6.3%), Romania (-5.1%) and Croatia (-9.5%) to show better performances and to gradually move towards full recovery.

-In contrast, airports in Slovakia (-30.9%), Czech Republic (-35.4%), Finland (-35.1%), and Sweden (-27%) performed significantly lower – mainly due to the effects of the war in Ukraine but also of the more conservative program of the local air carriers.

-In terms of the largest European markets, airports in France (-11.2%) recovered the fastest, followed by the United Kingdom (-14.4%), while airports in Germany (-26.2%) still lag behind significantly as low-cost carriers reduced their presence.

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– Passenger traffic at the top 5 European airports by numbers remained down 17.1% compared to October 2019. Istanbul was the busiest European airport with almost 6 million passengers during the month with a slight decrease compared to 2019 the order of 3.8%. London ( Heathrow ) comes in second with traffic down 15.7% even, followed by Paris (CDG) down 18.5% below pre-pandemic levels. Frankfurt ( -23.3% compared to pre-pandemic performance) came fourth, while Amsterdam came in fifth with reduced traffic of 23.6%.

– Among the smaller regional airports with the highest performances in popular tourist destinations in October, ACI Europe also includes two Greek ones, those of Kos with +25.2% compared to 2019 and Corfu with +20.2%.