Passenger traffic inching towards full recovery in October

05.12.2023 - 08:35 / traveldailynews.com / Olivier Jankovec / Theodore Koumelis / Aci Europe

Within the EU+ countries market, the best performances came from relying on incoming tourism and VFR traffic: Iceland (+25%), Greece (+21%), Slovenia (+20%) and Portugal (+16%).

BRUSSELS – ACI Europe today released its air traffic report for October 2023. Passenger traffic  across the European airport network continued to defy inflated air fares and geopolitical tensions in October – with an increase of +11.7% compared to the same month last year. This resulted in volumes standing at just -1.7% below pre-pandemic levels (October 2019).

Olivier Jankovec, Director General of ACI Europe said: “The momentum towards a full passenger traffic recovery for Europe’s airports kept going strong in October – defying both air fares up by +36.3%¹ and the conflict in Israel adding further geopolitical tensions. Leisure, VFR and to a lesser extent blended travel were key demand drivers, extending dynamics normally associated with the peak Summer months into the autumn. At the same time and while still below where it used to be, business travel also contributed to getting Europe’s airports almost back to their pre-pandemic volumes.”

“However, this on-going traffic momentum did not benefit all airports equally. There is no doubt that Europe has become a fragmented and multi-speed airport market when looking at passenger traffic performance. This reflects structural changes which only reinforce competitive pressures upon airports.” 

Airports in the EU+ market²  led the growth dynamic, with passenger traffic expanding by +12.6% (vs. October 2022). Meanwhile, those in the rest of Europe³  saw their growth slowing down to +7%. This largely reflected the impact of the conflict in Israel which erupted on 7 October, and which resulted in airports in the country seeing passenger volumes decreasing by -40.8% over the full month.

As a result, when compared to pre-pandemic levels (October 2019):

As in previous months, performance gaps amongst national markets remained significant – reflecting geopolitical tensions as well as demand dynamics dominated by leisure & VFR4 and driven by selective Ultra-Low Cost Carrier expansion.

Passenger traffic at the Majors (top 5 European airports) grew by +14.6% in October compared to the same period last year, but still remained –5% below their pre-pandemic levels (October 2019).

London-Heathrow  (+18.1% vs. Oct 2022 | -0.5% vs. Oct 2019) further reinforced its position as the busiest European airport. The British hub was followed by Istanbul (+11.2% vs. Oct 2022 | +6.9% vs. Oct 2019), Paris-CDG (+10.5% vs. Oct 2022 | -10% vs. Oct 2019), Amsterdam-Schiphol (+18.5% vs. Oct 2022 | -9.5% vs. Oct 2019) and Frankfurt (+14.9% vs. Oct 2022 | -11.9% vs Oct 2019).

Amongst other large