International passenger traffic growth keeps market resilient

ACI Europe has released its air traffic report for May 2025. This latest report reveals continued disparities in passenger traffic performance across the European airport market, as well as a significant drop in freight traffic.

Passenger traffic in the European airport network increased by +3.4% in May compared to the same month last year — resulting in volumes standing at +8% above pre pandemic (May 2019) levels.

The growth was entirely driven by international passenger traffic (+4.3% vs. May 2024), with domestic passenger traffic slightly decreasing (0.2% vs. May 2024).

As in previous months, airports outside the EU+ market¹ outperformed in May with passenger volumes growing by +6%. This reflected impressive growth at airports in Moldova (+41.9%), Bosnia & Herzegovina (+30.5%), Georgia (+23.4%), Israel (+17.5%) and Kazakhstan (+14.5%). Meanwhile, the growth dynamic softened for airports in Türkiye (+1.8%), while those in Russia reported declining volumes (9.2%).

The EU+ market² saw passenger traffic increasing by +2.9% with the best performances coming from airports in the Eastern part of the bloc: Slovakia (+33%), Hungary (+15.3%), Poland (+13.7%) and Slovenia (+13.5%) — along with Cyprus (+10.9%). Conversely, Estonia (6.2%), Luxembourg (3.6%), Sweden (2%), Switzerland (1.4%) and Norway (-0.4%) reported declining volumes. Amongst the largest EU+ markets, the best results came from Italy (+4.4%), Spain (+3.3%) and the UK (+1.7%) while Germany (+0.8%) and France (+0.7%) significantly underperformed, hampered by punitive national aviation taxes.

“Passenger traffic remained resilient in May as consumers continue to prioritise travel and leisure as part of the underlying shift from material to experiential consumption. This bodes well for the peak summer months,” commented Director General of ACI Europe, Olivier Jankovec.

“However, the performance of many airports continues to be hampered by aircraft shortages and maintenance issues affecting airlines, Air Traffic Management disruptions and punitive aviation taxes — all taking their toll on air connectivity.

“It also remains to be seen how geopolitics and geoeconomics will shape consumer and business confidence moving forward. The former has had differentiated traffic impacts upon airports — negative for some and positive for a few others — while so far geoeconomics have mainly impacted freight traffic but not passenger traffic overall.”

Performance gaps and airport market segments

Major airports (over 40m passengers) kept growing at the slowest pace in May with passenger volumes increasing by +2.7% compared to the same month last year:

• The strongest performances in that segment came from Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen (+14.9%), Rome Fiumicino (+4.1%), Barcelona (+3.6%) and Munich (+3.2%).
• London-Heathrow remained the busiest European airport welcoming 7.2m passengers during the month, but seeing volume expanding by just +0.4%. The British hub was followed by Istanbul (7m passengers | +2.6%) and Paris CDG (6.2m passengers | +1.7%).

Small airports (less than one million passengers) outperformed all other segments of the airport industry, with their passenger traffic increasing by +11%. However, they also remained the only segment for which volumes have not yet recovered pre pandemic (May 2019) levels (26.7%).

Larger regional airports serving popular tourism destinations and/or relying on VFR (visiting friends and relatives) demand generally kept performing well, although restraints on airline capacity deployment increased competitive pressures further and resulted in significant performance variations. Some of the best results came from: Varna (+40.1%), Tivat (+21.9%), Cork (+17.5%), Wroclaw (+17%), Girona (+15.3%), Funchal (+14.9%), Cluj (+12.8%), Split (+11.5%) and Florence (+10.5%).

The main continental Low Cost Carrier bases posted mixed results in May — a significant departure from the post COVID recovery trends which had seen them growing exponentially: Bergamo (0.8%), Beauvais (+3.6%) and Charleroi (+5.7%).

Freight and aircraft movements

Freight traffic across Europe’s airports declined 6.3% year on year in May— with EU+ airports at 7.6% and non EU+ at +1.1%. When compared to pre pandemic (May 2019) levels, freight volumes were at 0.7%.

Amongst the top 10 European airports for freight traffic, the best results compared to last year came from Liège (+18.1%), Brussels (+15.7%), East Midlands (+9.5%), London Heathrow (+7.1%) and Frankfurt (+4.9%).

Aircraft movements in May increased by +2.4% compared to the same period last year and were just above pre pandemic (May 2019) levels (+0.1%).

References

1 Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Georgia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Russia, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

2 EU, EEA, Switzerland and the UK.