planes.cz – News – How is the operation of European airports recovering? Prague remains on the tail.
The association of European airports ACI Europe (Airports Council International Europe) brought statistics on the performance of European airports for October.
Compared to October 2021, the number of checked-in passengers increased by 40% in October 2022. International routes accounted for most of the growth (51%), domestic routes grew by only 12%. Compared to October 2019, the number of passengers decreased by -12%.
36% of European airports achieved the pre-crisis volume of handled passengers. The speed of airport recovery is very uneven.
The uneven development is caused by a number of factors: the impact of the war in Ukraine on individual airports, the selective expansion of optimal carriers, ongoing restrictions (China, the Far East) and changes caused by pressure on family budgets.
EU+ countries
In the countries designated by ACI Europe as EU+ (EU, EEA, Britain and Switzerland), the number of checked passengers increased by 50%. Compared to October 2019, the drop is -12%.
The biggest year-on-year increase was recorded in Britain (+98.3%), Finland (+89.8%) and Ireland (+86.8%).
Iceland (+8%), Greece (+7.5%), Portugal (+3.8%) and Bulgaria (0%) achieved full recovery compared to October 2019.
Capacity growth provided the capacity for full recovery that Luxembourg (-1.4%), Spain (-2.9%), Ireland (-5.9%), Italy (-6.3 %), Romania (-5.1%) and Croatia (-9.5%).
In contrast, the Czech Republic (-35.4%), Finland (-35.1%), Slovakia (-30.9%) and Sweden (-27%) show the worst performances compared to October 2019. This is mainly due to the effects of the war in Ukraine and the absence of strong domestic operators.
Of the largest European markets, airports in France (-11.2%) and Britain (-14.4%) have recovered the best, while Germany lags behind by 26.2% compared to October 2021, mainly due to the impact of the activities of smaller operators.
The rest of Europe
In other European countries (as defined by ACI Europe), there was year-on-year growth of 6%. The main cause is the effects of the war in Ukraine and the related blockade of Russia.
Compared to October 2019, the decrease was -14%. If the development in the EU+ countries was uneven, it coincides twice as much in the countries. Albania (+72.4%), Armenia (+30.9%), Kosovo (+20.1%), Uzbekistan (+21.2%), Kazakhstan (+20.1) recorded a significant number of handled passengers compared to October 2019 %) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (+15.6%).
Russia (+1.3%) outperformed pre-cruise performance, and Georgia (-1%) and Turkey (-6.7%) came close to full recovery.
Top5
Year-on-year increase of the five largest European airports (by total number of passengers handled):
Istanbul (+36.7%)
London Heathrow (+93.6%)
Paris CDG (+67.6%)
Frankfurt (+45.3%)
Amsterdam (+31.1%)
Performances in individual categories (according to the number of checked-in passengers):
The largest year-on-year increase in the number of handled passengers in individual size categories is as follows:
Group 1 (more than 25 million passengers per year):
Paris Orly (+6.7%), Palma (+4.8%), Athens (-0.5%), Lisbon (-1%) and Istanbul (-3.8%).
Group 2 (10 to 25 million passengers)
Catania (+8.3%), Porto (+6.9%), Naples (+5.7%), Tenerife (+4.7%), Gran Canaria (+4.4%)
Group 3 (5 to 10 million passengers)
Sochi (+125.6%), Almaty (+20.1%), Rhodes (+16.3%), Heraklion (+13.6%), Palermo (+12.5%)
Group 4:
Tirana (+72.4%), Burgas (+44.9%), Menorca (+40.1%), Funchal (+37.3%), Trabzon (+36.2%)
It is clear from the above that the biggest increases were enjoyed in popular tourist destinations.
Why is Prague Airport lagging behind in recovery?
As shown by ACI Europe data, Prague Airport shows a recovery compared to 2019 (-35.4%). The exceptionally high outage is not only related to the effects of the pandemic, the airport was significantly affected by the outage of passengers as a result of the war in Ukraine and the related blockade of flights to/from Russia.
In 2019, Prague Airport handled a record 17.8 million passengers, with Russia third behind Britain and Italy with 1.3 million passengers. These passengers, as well as passengers on routes to/from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, will be absent at least in the medium term. This is a fact that the airport will not do anything about.
Not everything can be blamed on a war or a pandemic. From the statistics of ACI Europe, it is clear that the growth of traffic in Europe this year was primarily driven by low-cost companies. In this context, it must be stated that the previous management of Prague Airport approached low-cost operators in a motherly way and preferred cooperation with traditional carriers. The rationale at the time was that low-cost carriers are complicated because they often change their plans. This strategy particularly marked Wizz Air’s growth plans. Today, Prague Airport is paying for this strategy, and the new management is certainly trying to change the situation. However, it is certainly easier to lose the interest of securing operators than to win them back.
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