Almost two billion passengers transited European airports during 2022, twice as many as in 2021, but still 21% less than the total number of passengers registered in 2019, before the pandemic, it announces Association of Romanian Airports.
According to ACI Europe data, only 27% of Europe's airports managed to fully recover and record traffic at least at the level of 2019, almost all of them (90%) being small or regional airports.
The top 5 busiest European airports is opened by Istanbul with 64,3 million registered passengers, meaning Turkey's main airport has returned to pre-pandemic traffic.
London Heathrow occupies the second position in the ranking, with 61,6 million passengers and is followed by the airport of Paris, with 57,5 million passengers (-24,5% compared to 2019). Airport Amsterdam-Schipol, the fourth busiest in Europe, recorded much reduced traffic compared to 2019 (52,5 million passengers, 26,8% less than in 2019).
Madrid Airport concludes the top 5 busiest European airports, with 50,6 million passengers (surpassing Frankfurt airport, which recovered only 70% of pre-pandemic traffic and was transited by 48,9 million passengers in 2022).
As for the cargo traffic recorded by the airports, it decreased by 5% compared to the previous year, a direct consequence of the war in Ukraine and the disruption of global trade. Even so, cargo traffic at European airports was 2% higher than that recorded before the pandemic, a trend that was also found at Romanian airports.