Airport Insights Report: Top 10 European airports for 2022 and 2023 outlook

After a slow start to 2022, traffic at European airports bounced back strongly through the year thanks to a strong northern summer travel period.

At European airports, total passenger throughput nearly doubled in 2022. This occurred despite the nearly unprecedented operational issues experienced through the peak summer travel months (and again at the start of the northern winter period), along with near record oil prices, a war in Eastern Europe, and an uncertain economic outlook denting consumer confidence.

According to ACI Europe, total traffic through its European member airports finished 21% below prepandemic levels. Encouragingly, passenger volumes in Dec-2022 were around 86% of Dec-2019 levels. As of Jan-2023, 42% of European airports had returned to pre-pandemic traffic volumes. The outlook for the full year is for traffic at somewhere around 90% of pre-pandemic levels.