Schiphol offers direct connections (without transfer) from the Netherlands to 326 destinations in 98 countries. While Schiphol’s direct connectivity remained unchanged as compared with last year, Frankfurt’s improved by 11.1%.
Hub connectivity
Schiphol’s second place worldwide in the area of hub connectivity reflects the fact that aviation has effectively linked the Netherlands to the rest of the world. This position offers benefits to international trade, knowledge exchange, tourism and more. ACI bases its calculation of hub connectivity scores on the number of connections, the quality of those connections and the transfer times for passengers.
New air connectivity ranking for Europe’s airports released
At the 27th ACI Joint EUROPE & World Annual Congress taking place in Brussels at the moment, ACI EUROPE released its latest annual Airport Industry Connectivity Report – with insights into the airports providing the best air connectivity to their communities & transfer passengers.
The EU Aviation Strategy launched by Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc in December 2015 put a spotlight on the value of air connectivity for citizens and for the economy.
ACI EUROPE uses data harvested by SEO Amsterdam Economics to measure and analyse the level & quality of air connectivity in 3 key metrics:
- Direct Connectivity – the number of direct air services offered by an airport
- Indirect connectivity – this measures the number of places people can fly on
to, through a connecting flight at hub airport from a particular airport. - Hub connectivity – the key metric for any hub airport – it measures the number
of connecting flights that can be facilitated by the hub airport in question, taking
into account quality of connecting times.
DIRECT CONNECTIVITY
Frankfurt Airport is now the No.1 airport in Europe in terms of direct connectivity, having jumped from 3rd position last year, as a result of significant network expansion of both the Lufthansa Group and Low Cost Carriers.
Amsterdam Schiphol now moves down to 2nd position for direct connectivity in Europe – still up from the 6th position it held back in 2008.
London Heathrow went from the 2nd to the 3rd position also not making any gains in direct connectivity this year (-0.2%) to due to lack of capacity.
In the past year, the UK is the only country in the EU to record a loss in direct
connectivity (-0.8%).
Frankfurt also remains the airport offering the best hub connectivity not just in Europe, but also worldwide – having increased its hub connectivity by an impressive +12.8% over the preceding year.
Amsterdam Schiphol also remains No.2 followed by Dallas Fort Worth, Paris CDG and the busiest airport in the world, Atlanta.
Smaller and nice hubs registered growth in connectivity at twice the pace of the major hubs, over the past 10 years – pointing to intensifying competition in the hub segment.
19 June 2018
