European airports struggle to claw back passengers; reductions at 56% of airports in 2023 vs 2019

An intriguing presentation by Airports Council International (ACI) at a recent airport conference in Europe is examined in this report, together with some further research undertaken by CAPA - Centre for Aviation.

It reveals what the airport sector would prefer not to acknowledge in what was supposed to be a post-pandemic recovery year: namely, that more than half of European airports that are members of ACI-Europe experienced a continuing shortfall in passenger traffic in 2023 compared to the benchmark year of 2019.

The CAPA - Centre for Aviation research, which measures the Top 5 European airports by passenger numbers against three smaller airports in each of their countries, suggests that in most cases it is, perhaps surprisingly, the primary gateway/hub airports that are struggling to regain even the pre-pandemic status quo, while small regional and especially low cost airports are (in the main) doing quite well.

There are, at the very least, pointers here as to how the air travel business will continue to develop in Europe in the next few years.