Passenger traffic up 8% at European airports during April

European airport trade body, ACI EUROPE today released its traffic results for the month of April across the European airport network, revealing an impressive year-on year increase of +8.0% in passenger traffic compared to April 2013.

EU airports showed an increase averaging +7.4%, while passenger traffic at non-EU airports increased +10.0%, when compared with the same month last year.

Aircraft movements for the whole of Europe reported grew by +2.0%, while freight traffic posted an encouraging yet modest increase of +3.0%.

Olivier Jankovec, Director General ACI EUROPE commented“Although these traffic figures are boosted by Easter taking place in April this year and the generally weak traffic performance of April last year, they are pointing to solid demand levels across Europe. For the first time since the global financial crisis, the gap in passenger traffic growth between EU airports and non-EU airports has significantly narrowed. This is due to demand for air transport bucking the trend in wider economic activity in the Eurozone – in particular countries like in Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Cyprus and Italy. This is also due to demand plunging in Ukraine and slowing down both in Russia and Norway.”   

He added “A large chunk of the passenger growth registered in April comes from airlines achieving record load factors rather than adding much more capacity. At selected individual airports, passenger growth is also fuelled by Low Cost Carriers moving upmarket – however this is often at the expense of other secondary and regional airports. It remains to be seen whether the coming months will be able to sustain similar levels of demand growth – in particular given the on-going uncertainties as regards the pace and depth of the economic recovery. ”

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 +7.0%, +11.4%, +4.6% and +7.5% respectively when compared with April 2013.

Airports that experienced the highest increases in passenger traffic per group, when comparing April 2014 with April 2013 were:

• GROUP 1 Airports – London LGW (+15.4%), Istanbul IST (+11.9%), Barcelona BCN (+10.8%), Moscow SVO (+10.6%) & Moscow DME (+9.6%)
• GROUP 2 Airports – Istanbul SAW (+33.6%), Tel Aviv (+33.0%), Athens ATH (+28.0%), Gran Canaria (+22.3%) and Lisbon (+18.1%)
• GROUP 3 Airports – Heraklion (31.2%), Lanzarote (+20.7%), Faro (+17.7%), Birmingham (+16.7%) and Catania (+15.9%)
• GROUP 4 Airports – Montichiari (+1,097.1%), Santorini (+55.8%), Chania (+48.3%), Belgrade (+46.1%) and Chambery (+45.8%)

The ‘ACI EUROPE Airport Traffic Report – April 2014’ includes 190 airports in total representing approximately 88% of European air passenger traffic.