European airport trade body, ACI Europe released its traffic report for February. The report is the only air transport report which includes all types of civil aviation passenger flights: full service, low cost and charter.

It reveals that freight traffic across the European airport network – an established bellwether of economic performance – was up +2.9 per cent. Aircraft movements were up +1.4 per cent.

Passenger traffic at Europe’s airports grew by an average +5.0 per cent during the month. Reviewing the result in more detail, passenger traffic in the EU grew by a healthy +6.2 per cent, driven in particular by double digit growth in Greece, Ireland, Belgium, Portugal, Romania, Hungary and Lithuania. Meanwhile, in a continued reversal of fortune, non-EU airports posted a much lower rate of passenger traffic growth (+1.3 per cent), mainly due to traffic losses in Ukraine and Russia as well as the impact of severe weather conditions in parts of Turkey.

Olivier Jankovec, director general of ACI Europe said “EU passenger traffic keeps outperforming weak economic growth, building upon last year’s dynamic trend. The outlook is now getting even brighter, as lower oil prices, the ECB’s Quantitative Easing policy and improving consumer confidence should all help further support demand for air travel in the coming months. Conversely, Russian airports are generally seeing a sharp decrease in passenger traffic – with the country entering recession this year for the first time since 2009 and international sanctions taking their toll. This situation is also affecting freight traffic across Europe, as well as the passenger traffic performance of other European airports that are particularly exposed to Russian demand.”