This reflects established recovery patterns, notably the prominence of leisure & VFR demand, the expansion of ultra-Low Cost Carriers and tight capacity management from most other airlines. Performance variations remained significant across both national and individual airport markets – with only 47% of Europe’s airports having fully recovered their pre-pandemic passenger volumes. “Yet, not all airports benefitted to the same extent. This is quite remarkable when the increase in air fares is more than 6 times above consumer price inflation 1.” The Easter holidays boosted demand, which clearly kept defying inflationary pressures. Olivier Jankovec, Director General of ACI EUROPE said: “April has brought us closest ever to a full recovery for passenger traffic. As a result, when compared to pre-pandemic (April 2019) levels, volumes in April this year stood at -7.6% – a further improvement over the preceding months (Q1 was at -10.6%). Considering that travel restrictions had largely been eased in Europe by that time last year, such increase is significant. Passenger traffic in the European airport network grew by +21.1% in April compared to the same month last year.

The air traffic report for April 2023 released by European airport trade body ACI EUROPE shows passenger traffic made further gains towards a full recovery, but with wide performance divergence across the continent.

ACI Europe have reported passenger traffic nearly reach pre-pandemic levels.

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