European airport trade body, ACI EUROPE, yesterday released its air traffic report for February 2022. The report shows that after two months during which the recovery stalled due to the COVID-19 Omicron wave, passenger traffic resumed an upward trajectory in February. Accordingly, compared to pre-pandemic (2019) levels, passenger volumes across the European airport network stood at -39% during the month, up from -45.7% in January.Olivier Jankovec, director general of ACI EUROPE commented: “Improvements to passenger traffic in February reflected the fact that States started to ease restrictions as the Omicron wave subsided, both at local level and those relating to travel. Since then, most restrictions to intra-European travel have been lifted and more external markets are opening up – meaning the traffic recovery has gathered steam.“The outlook for the Easter holidays and into the Summer months is strong, but staff shortages, high traffic peaks and ATM capacity issues are starting to put strain on operations and to impact quality. Above all, there is no escaping the fact that the war in Ukraine has devastated the country’s airports and that it also comes with significant downside risks for European air traffic.”All data reported below are against pre-pandemic (2019) corresponding periods. Freight traffic across the European airport network also improved significantly in February at +10.6%, up from -8.6% in January. Aircraft movements stood at -32.8% in February compared to -42.1% in the preceding month. During February, airports welcoming more than 25 million passengers per year (Group 1), airports welcoming between 10 and 25 million passengers (Group 2), airports welcoming between 5 and 10 million passengers (Group 3) and airports welcoming less than 5 million passengers per year (Group 4) reported an average decline of passenger traffic compared to 2019 by -42.9%, -38.1%, -29.5% and -28.6% respectively.
