Southern European airports emerged stronger from the health crisis

Across the Old Continent, airport platforms regained 94,6% of their 2019 passengers last year, indicated their main organization, ACI Europe, figures consistent with those already published by airlines.

But these 2,3 billion travelers, an increase of 19% in one year, were distributed very differently compared to the pre-pandemic period, noted ACI Europe, citing a “big divergence” with winners and losers.

In the first category are airports located in Portugal (+12,2% compared to 2019), Greece (+12,1%) and Malta (+6,7%).

In the second, Finland stands out with airport attendance down 29,6%, the price of Russia's neighborhood, while Germany is at -22,4%, a situation comparable to that of Sweden (- 21%).

Spain is the only major European country back in positive territory compared to 2019 (+2%), while Italy (-2%), France (-5,4%) and the United Kingdom (- 6,4%) remained in the red.

Note, beyond the borders of the European Union, the jump in destinations in Albania (+117%) and Kosovo (+44%) where "ultra-low cost companies have quickly deployed their capacities", according to ACI Europe.

And even further, countries that maintained their connections with Russia in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine benefited from very strong growth in traffic at their airports, such as Uzbekistan (+110%), Armenia (+66%) and Kazakhstan (+51%), even if Turkey, in the same case, only saw attendance increase by 2,5% over four years.

Another geopolitical crisis, the Hamas attack on Israel in October, caused a collapse in the number of passengers at that country's airports in the fourth quarter (-63% compared to the same period of 2019), for an annual average -12%), according to ACI Europe.

In terms of airport rankings, London-Heathrow regained its crown as the leading European platform in 2023 with 79,2 million passengers, followed by Istanbul (76 million), Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle (67,4), Amsterdam Schiphol ( 61,9) and Madrid (60,2).

On average, these five major "hubs" welcomed 6,5% fewer passengers last year than in 2019, a consequence of "the relative weakness of the Asian market, the slow recovery of business travel and restricted capacity companies", according to ACI Europe.

In contrast, large airports serving leisure destinations or used by a diaspora showed great form, such as Athens (+10,1%), Lisbon (+7,9%) and Palma de Mallorca (+4,7% ).

And other facilities specializing in hosting low-cost carriers have even seen their traffic more than double, like Trapani (+223%) and Perugia (+143%) in Italy, as well as Tirana (+ 117%).

In this context of “multi-speed recovery”, ACI Europe, which brings together 500 airports in 55 countries, sees them exceeding the pre-pandemic number of travelers in 2024, at 101,4% of 2019.