ACI Europe: July-September Greek Airport Performance Peaks

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Athens International Airport (AIA) remained among Europe’s best performing airports in its category in the third quarter (Q3) of the year, exceeding Q3 pre-Covid 2019 figures driven by strong international demand, found data released this week by the Airports Council International Europe (ACI Europe).

More specifically, among similar-sized airports, AIA traffic was up by 10.2 percent. Other airports reporting the highest increases in passenger traffic in Q3 and outdoing pre-pandemic 2019 levels were: Istanbul-Sabiha Gokcen (+8.2 percent), Lisbon (+5.6 percent), Paris-Orly (+8.7 percent), Palma de Mallorca (+2.9 percent), London-Stansted (+1.3 percent), Dublin (+1.0 percent) and Antalya (+0.9 percent).

Greek airports were also among those posting the best passenger traffic recovery in Q3 over 2019 up by 12.9 percent. Other good performers include the airports of Luxembourg (+13.3 percent), Portugal (+11.0 percent), Malta (+6.5 percent), and Croatia (+6.4 percent).

Santorini also marked a 30 percent rise managing to exceed pre-pandemic volumes in its category.

European airports: Q3 passenger traffic sees increase

Overall in Q3, passenger traffic across European airports increased by 12.1 percent over the same quarter a year ago despite increasing air fares and rising inflation. Demand was greatest during the summer months. However, compared to Q3 2019, passenger traffic is still down by 3.1 percent, but marking a significant improvement over the first half of the year (-7.7 percent).

The top performer in Q3 was London-Heathrow, which was Europe’s busiest airport marking a 22.9 percent year-on-year increase in passenger traffic and surpassing its 2019 traffic performance for the first time since the outbreak of Covid-19.

Also among the Top 3 were the airports of Istanbul, which came second with passenger traffic up by 10.8 percent over Q3 2022 and by 14.1 percent over Q3 2019; and Paris-CDG, with traffic increasing by 9.5 percent year-on-year but down by 12.2 percent over Q3 2019 volumes.

Almost half (48 percent) of Europe’s airports have recovered their 2019 traffic volumes.

“The peak summer season has brought Europe’s airports ever closer to a full recovery in passenger traffic, with demand largely defying inflationary pressures, much higher air fares and geopolitical tensions,” said ACI Europe Director General Olivier Jankovec.

Jankovec added however that significant variations in traffic performance continue to persist. “Leisure and blended demand is king, still predominantly focused on intra-European and transatlantic routes – and very much driven by capacity expansion from ultra-low cost carriers,” he said.

On the downside, the slowest traffic recovery and significantly down on 2019 levels was posted by airports in Finland (-32.8 percent), Slovenia (-26.1 percent), Sweden (-21.1 percent), Bulgaria (-19.6 percent), Germany (-18.3 percent), Latvia (-16.8 percent), and Czechia (-15.6 percent).

In September, passenger traffic across the European airport network was up by 12.1 percent over 2022 but still 3.0 percent below 2019 levels.