Air passenger traffic in Europe increased by 37% between 2020 and 2021, according to a report released by the European section on Tuesday ACI. At the same time, this report highlights that passenger air traffic in Europe is still 59% higher than previous COVID-19 levels.
"For now, the impact of the Omicron variant remains very significant (…). This means that the first quarter of 2022 will be disappointing, but we expect traffic to improve as spring approaches.Said ACI Europe CEO Olivier Jankovec.
Air traffic in Europe lost 1,4 billion passengers compared to 2019, the last year of normal activity before the pandemic broke out, and the current context indicates that small airports are recovering faster than large ones, the report said.
The Delta variant compromised the first half of 2021, with a 77,7% decrease in traffic compared to 2019, but levels recovered in the second half of the year and, thanks to vaccination and digital travel certificates, limited the decrease to 42,4% compared to 2019.
European Union airports, not the entire European continent, have increased by only 29,2% compared to 2020 and continue to have 64,6% less air traffic compared to 2019.
The best results compared to 2019 were those in Greece (-46,8%), Romania (-52,7%), Luxembourg (-53,9%), Cyprus (-55,6%), Bulgaria ( -55,9%), Spain (-56,4%) and Portugal (-57,9%).
At the opposite end are airports in Finland (-80,5%), the United Kingdom (-78,1%), the Czech Republic (-74,8%) and Ireland (-74,4%), due to "severe restrictions on imposed by those countries, according to the ACI Europe report.
Large airports in Europe have reported increasing passenger air traffic in 2021 compared to 2020, but well below that of 2019. And Romanian regional airports reported more passengers in 2021 compared to 2020, but below the level of 2019, which confirms the ACI report.