Brussels-based ACI Europe has reported this week that European airport traffic in November grew by an average +4.6%, with EU airports registering average passenger traffic growth of +5.1% against ‘diminished growth’ of +2.9% for non-EU airports.

 

Commenting on the November numbers, Olivier Jankovec, Director General ACI Europe said: “Overall, passenger traffic remained healthy in November – although growing at a slower pace when compared to previous months.

 

“This slower growth is essentially due to heavy traffic losses at Russian airports, as well as to the fierce impact of the Lufthansa strikes on German airports and the toll taken by the Paris terrorist attacks on French airports.

 

 

“The combination of these events resulted in Istanbul-Atatürk airport ranking the second busiest European airport behind London-Heathrow for the first time on a monthly basis – as passenger traffic decreased by -11.3% at Frankfurt Airport and by -1.3% at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport.”

 

Despite this, Jankovec added that ‘many EU markets’ achieved double-digit growth in passenger traffic and he listed Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia,

 

GOOD ‘OVERALL’ TRAFFIC LEVELS…

He also picked out Iceland’s ‘stellar growth’ pointing to Keflavik Airport’s rising passengers up +26.4%. “However, overall growth in freight traffic remained almost flat due to significant traffic losses at Russian airports which dragged down non-EU airport freight traffic to -12.8% – whereas EU airports posted a +1.3% increase,” said Jankovec.

 

During November, airports handling more than 25m passengers a year (Group 1) reported average traffic growth of +1.9%, followed by those with 10m to 25m (Group 2) registering +6.5%. Airports handling between 5m and 10m (Group 3) saw average growth of +8.6% while those with less than 5m a year (Group 4) grew by an average of +5.1%.

 

Within their respective groupings, airports reporting the highest growth rates last November were as follows:

 

GROUP 1: Madrid (+12.9%), Barcelona (+12.7%), Copenhagen (+12.1%), Amsterdam (+8.8%) and London LGW (+7.3%);

 

GROUP 2: Istanbul SAW (21.4%); Dublin (+16.4%); Athens (+16.0%); Prague (+12.9%); and Edinburgh (+12.4%);

 

GROUP 3: Berlin SXF (+46.1%), Cologne-Bonn (+18.3%), Porto (+16.0%), Lyon (+15.8%) and Gothenburg GOT (+15.0%);

 

GROUP 4: Ohrid (+229.3%), Santorini/Thira (+87.6%), Ponta Delgada (+58.6%), Bournemouth (+52.2%) and Hammerfest (+35.5%).

 

The ‘ACI EUROPE Airport Traffic Report – November 2015’ includes 211 airports in total representing more than 88% of European air passenger traffic.

 

ACI Europe advises that comprehensive traffic results for December plus full year 2015 statistics covering 2011 airports representing 88% of Europe’s passenger airport traffic will be released in early February.