Airports

ACI Europe reveals airports with biggest passenger growth in Q3 2018

Photo: London Stansted Airport.

ACI EUROPE yesterday released its air traffic report for  Q3 which revealed that during the third quarter of this year, passenger traffic growth at Europe’s airports moderated to +5% – compared to +6% in Q2 and +8.9% in Q1.

According to ACI Europe, the airports that reported the highest increases in passenger traffic are as follows:

GROUP 1:     Moscow SVO (+14.3%), Madrid (+8.6%), London STN (+8.2%), Istanbul SAW (+7.5%) and Frankfurt (+7.3%)

GROUP 2:     Moscow VKO (+17.5%), Kiev (+16.6%), Budapest (13.6%), Warsaw & Athens (+12%) and Venice (+11%

GROUP 3:     Seville (+23.3%), Palermo (+15.3%), Riga (+14.8%), Krakow (+13.5%), Sochi (+12.2%)

GROUP 4:     Targu Mures (+9547%), Taranto (+155.2%), Vilnius (+107.9%), Sibiu (+58.9%) and Kutaisi (+53%).

Olivier Jankovec, Director General of ACI EUROPE said “The peak summer months show that the momentum in traffic growth is robust, but diminishing.

Airport capacity issues, industrial unrest, rising oil prices and airline consolidation are putting the brakes on more gains.

Aviation taxes and economic slowdowns have also come to take their toll – as evidenced by stalling air traffic growth in Sweden and Turkey.

Looking at the coming months, BREXIT risks have somewhat receded following yesterday’s EC announcement of its contingency measures in case negotiations with the UK fail.

The fact that the EC has formally clarified that it will propose measures to ensure undisrupted air connectivity between the EU27 and the UK after March 2019 is indeed a relief.

With the UK having already taken a similar position, this means that consumers can now have confidence over existing and future bookings for travel between the EU27 and the UK next year.”

He added “However, the EC announcement makes it clear that these contingency measures would only apply until December 2019.

That still leaves a big question mark as to what would happen beyond that date if the no-deal scenario materialises.”

During Q3, 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 adjustment +4.2%, +5.7%, +4.9% and +6.7%.

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