Passenger traffic growth up 7.9% in European airports during November

European airport trade body, ACI EUROPE releases its air traffic report for November. The report is the only industry report that includes all types of civil aviation passenger flights: full service, low cost and charter. It reveals that during the month of November, passenger traffic at Europe’s airports grew by +7.9%, almost exactly at the same pace as in October (+7.8%).

Non-EU airports continued to lead the growth in passenger traffic, with volumes increasing by +11.6%. Georgian airports led the dynamic (+31.8%) – while Iceland, Israel, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and FYROM also saw their airports achieving double-digit passenger growth.

Meanwhile, passenger traffic at EU airports grew by +6.8% – a performance which would have been even stronger were it not for a series of airline-caused disruptions. This primarily included the full impact of Air Berlin and Monarch having ceased operations, as evidenced by traffic losses at airports such as Berlin-TXL (-21.1%), Dusseldorf (-9.1%), Vienna (-0.1%), Birmingham (-1.5%) and Copenhagen (-3.5%). It also included Ryanair’s decision to slow down its growth this winter by taking 25 aircraft out of its fleet to avoid crew rostering-related flight cancellations.

Passenger growth at the Majors (top 5 European hubs) substantially picked up in November at +10.6% – led by the strong performance of Frankfurt at +21.1%, Istanbul-Atatürk at +15% and Amsterdam-Schiphol at +10.1%. Frankfurt’s record monthly growth was partly influenced by last year’s Lufthansa pilot strike. Net of the catch-up effect, the airport still grew by an impressive +11.8% on the back of significant low-cost airline expansion. Paris-CDG grew by +6.6% and capacity constrained London-Heathrow still managed to increase its passenger volume by +3.5%.

Freight traffic across the European airport network remained consistent with the previous month, coming in at +8.6%. Aircraft movements also remained robust at +3.6%.

During November, airports welcoming more than 25 million passengers per year (Group 1), airports welcoming between 10 and 25 million passengers (Group 2), airports welcoming between 5 and 10 million passengers (Group 3) and airports welcoming less than 5 million passengers per year (Group 4) reported an average adjustment +7.3%, +6.9%, +9.5% and +10.5%.

The airports that reported the highest increases in passenger traffic during November are as follows:

GROUP 1: Frankfurt (+21.1%), Palma De Mallorca (+16.4%), Moscow SVO (+16.4%), Istanbul IST (+15%) and Istanbul SAW (+10.7%)
GROUP 2: Ankara (+32%), Tel Aviv (+17.4%), Lisbon (17.3%), Budapest (+16.9%) and Prague (+15.1%)
GROUP 3: Naples (+49.8%), Heraklion (47.2%), Valencia (+26.1%), Palermo (+25.5%) and Keflavik (+19.8%)
GROUP 4: Grenoble (+144.7%), Varna (+89.7%), Kos (+72.8%), Batumi (+69.4%) and Craiova (+54.8%)

The ‘ACI EUROPE Airport Traffic Report – November 2017’ includes 253 airports in total representing more than 88% of European air passenger traffic.

Brussels, 12 January 2018