ACI Europe 2025 stats – 4.4% growth, recovery will continue in 2026; a deeper dive into the detail

ACI EUROPE has released its annual overview of passenger number increases and decrease at airports in 'Europe', which includes both EU and non-EU countries and those that stretch far into the east. Indeed the geographical scope extends from Ireland and Iceland in the west to the Caucasus Mountains in the east, which form a natural border between Europe and Asia.

There are many quite different factors influencing traffic growth between those regions.

The basic facts show that there were 2.6 billion passengers at those airports in 2025, with 4.4% growth overall, and the recovery is expected to continue in 2026.

But that statistic is the average of a very wide range, from +47% to -9.5% between one small and poor country and its huge neighbour that aspires to take it over.

But there are a myriad of talking points to investigate with a deeper dive necessary for some of the more startling statistics to surface.