European airports November passenger & freight up 7.1%
European airport trade association, ACI EUROPE today released its traffic report for November 2016, showing passenger traffic across the European airport network gained strong momentum in November, with an average increase of +7.1%.
This dynamic pattern started last September, initially relying on the EU market but is now underscored by an improving performance in the non-EU market.
Airports in the EU-28 reported an average passenger traffic growth of +8.0% - with Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania posting double digit growth. Several capital airports in these countries achieved stellar growth – including Sofia (+48.9%), Warsaw (+31.5%), Bucharest (+21.1%), Larnaca (+26.1%), Malta (+23.1%) and Lisbon (+21.1%).
Meanwhile, the non-EU bloc saw passenger traffic increasing by +3.9% - confirming its recovery on the back of more sustained growth in Russia as well as a still negative but improving performance in Turkey. Iceland and Israel also contributed significantly to these positive results. The best performances in non-EU countries included the following airports: Keflavik (+57.8%), Odessa (+29.6%), Rostov (+33.6%), Tel Aviv (+20.6%), Novosibirsk (+20.5%), Ekaterinburg (+20.3%) and Moscow-Sheremetyevo (+14.7%).
In line with previous months, an increasing part of the growth in passenger traffic was generated by secondary hubs and regional airports – reflecting the continued expansion of low cost airline models and the development of new and diversified air connectivity patterns.
Amongst the top five European hubs, Amsterdam-Schiphol continued to show the best passenger traffic performance (+8.7%), while Frankfurt and Paris-Charles de Gaulle improved their figures compared to previous months (+4.9% and +4.5% respectively) - along with London-Heathrow whose growth is limited by capacity constraints (+2.5%). Istanbul-Atatürk continued to suffer traffic decline due to the political situation and terrorist threat in Turkey (-5.7%).
Freight traffic across the European airport network also reported continuing strong growth of +6.5%, with this dynamic largely driven by non-EU airports – in contrast with passenger traffic.
Aircraft movements were up +3.7% across Europe, reflecting significant airline capacity expansion.
During the month of November, 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 five million passengers per year (Group 4) reported an average adjustment +4.4%, +8.8%, +9.6% and +10.2%.
The airports which reported the highest increases in passenger traffic during November 2016 (compared with November 2015) are as follows:
GROUP 1: Moscow SVO (+14.7%), Paris ORY (+10.0%), Barcelona (+9.2%), Dublin (+9.1%), Amsterdam (+8.7%)
GROUP 2: Warsaw WAW (+31.5%), Lisbon (+21.1%), Malaga (+20.8%), Tel Aviv (+20.6%) and Alicante (+19.8%)
GROUP 3: Larnaca (+26.1%), Porto (+23.7%), Faro (+23.2%), Bucharest OTP (+21.1%) and Valencia (+18.4%)
GROUP 4: Grenoble (+1,638.5%), Bucharest BBU (+742.9%), Oradea (+231.3%), Mikonos (+127.2%) and Iasi (+99.4%)
The 'ACI EUROPE Airport Traffic Report – November 2016’ includes 232 airports in total representing more than 88% of European air passenger traffic.