Air traffic across Europe surged in July, with a 70 per cent increase on the previous month, according to the latest report by airports association ACI Europe. However the association warned that recovery could be compromised if the European Union’s ‘use it or lose it’ airport slot rules are not restored during the forthcoming winter season.
With traffic volumes edging closer to pre-pandemic levels, ACI Europe director general Olivier Jankovec stressed the importance of returning to the standard airline slot regime of 80 per cent, which was reduced to 64 per cent across the EU and 70 per cent in the UK during the busy summer period.
“Going back to the 80 per cent usage rule is essential at this critical and dynamic juncture in the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. This is about ensuring an effective use of scarce airport capacity for the benefit of air connectivity, consumers and businesses,” he said.
While the European Commission plans to reinstate the standard airline slot rules from 30 October, the UK government is yet to announce any threshold changes following a chaotic summer schedule that led to a one-off “amnesty” introduced in July.
According to ACI’s July report, total air connectivity across European airports was just 15 per cent lower than pre-pandemic levels (July 2019). Airports in Greece (+5.4 per cent), Luxembourg (+2.2 per cent) and Iceland (+1.7 per cent) achieved a full recovery, closely followed by those in Portugal (-1.8 per cent), Romania (-2.9 per cent) and Lithuania (-3 per cent).
Passenger traffic in July nearly doubled compared to July 2021, with airports in Ireland (+386.5 per cent), the UK (+349.6 per cent), Finland (+268.5 per cent), Slovakia (+167.1 per cent) and Iceland (+146.8 per cent) seeing the highest increases.
“July has kept delivering a much needed boost in passenger traffic for most of Europe’s airports, driven by revenge – and still predominantly leisure – travel, as well as ultra low cost carriers expanding capacity well above pre-pandemic levels,” Jankovec added.
At the other end of the spectrum, airports in Slovenia (-39.5 per cent), Finland (-33.7 per cent), Bulgaria (-29.5 per cent) and Germany (-29.5 per cent) remained the farthest from achieving full recovery. Amongst other large European markets, the best performances came from airports in Spain (-7.9 per cent) and Italy (-9.6 per cent), followed by France (-13.5 per cent) and the UK (-19.1 per cent).
Meanwhile, July passenger traffic at airports in Eastern Europe only grew by 10.8 per cent compared to 2021, largely due to the war in Ukraine.