Air passenger transport in the EU27 in 2010 Highest growth in number of passengers in Copenhagen, Vienna, Milan and Rome airports

STAT/12/72

14 May 2012

Air passenger transport in the EU27 in 2010
Highest growth in number of passengers in Copenhagen, Vienna, Milan and Rome airports

In 2010, London/Heathrow remained the EU’s busiest passenger airport, with 66 million passengers handled, down by 0.2% compared with 2009. Paris/Charles de Gaulle (58 mn, +0.5%) and Frankfurt/Main (53 mn, +4.1%) were the second and third busiest airports, followed by Madrid/Barajas (50 mn, +3.9%) and Amsterdam/Schiphol (45 mn, +3.7%). Nine of the top 30 airports registered decreases in the number of passengers handled in 2010, with Dublin (-10.1%) showing the largest fall, followed by London/Stansted (-7.0%), Manchester and Athinai (both -5.2%). The largest increases were observed in København/Kastrup (+9.1%), Wien/Schwechat (+8.7%), Milano/Malpensa (+7.9%) and Roma/Fiumicino (+7.6%).

London/Heathrow (39 mn) handled the most extra-EU passengers, Amsterdam/Schiphol (25 mn) the most intra-EU passengers and Madrid/Barajas (19 mn) the most national passengers.

These figures are published in a report1 from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, on air transport in the EU27 in 2010. This report also looks in detail at national, intra-EU and extra-EU air transport of passengers and freight, as well as the most important airport pairs within the EU27.

Gradual slow down of the growth in the number of air passengers

In 2010, nearly 777 million passengers2 were transported by air in the EU27, split into 323 million passengers on intra-EU flights, 291 million on extra-EU flights and 163 million on national flights. Quarterly data show a decrease in air passenger transport in the second quarter of 2010 (-1.3% compared with the second quarter of 2009), due to the Icelandic volcanic eruption. Growth returned in the third quarter of 2010 with passenger number up by 5.8% compared with corresponding period of the previous year. Since then however, there has been a gradual slow down of the growth, air passenger transport increasing by 5.1% in the fourth quarter of 2010 and by 3.5% in the first quarter of 2011.

Top airports* in the EU27 in terms of total passengers carried

1000's of passengers in 2010 and % growth 2010/2009

* The 30 busiest airports in 2010 in terms of total passengers carried and the top airport in each of the 12 Member States which have no airport among the top 30.

- Not applicable

0 Less than 500 passengers recorded

Air passenger transport, 2010

* Double counting is excluded in the intra-EU and total aggregates by taking into consideration only departure declarations

: Data not available

- Not applicable

0 Less than 500 passengers recorded

** Data concern only Keflavik airport

*** Total based on the addition of airport declarations

Eurostat, Statistics in Focus 21/2012, "Air transport in Europe recovers in 2010". The publication is available free of charge in PDF format on the Eurostat website.

• Air passenger figures have been calculated excluding double counting of national and intra-EU passenger transport, i.e. not counting the same passengers twice, once reported by the origin airport as departures and once by the partner airport as arrivals. Since the EU27 aggregate excludes double counting on intra-EU traffic, Member States' figures do not add up to the EU27 aggregate. For example, a person flying from Paris to London will be counted in France as a ‘departure passenger’ and in the United Kingdom as an ‘arrival passenger’ but only once at EU27 level.

Air transport at airports in the Member States with a total transport of more than 150 000 passengers carried in 2010 is covered.

Eurostat news releases on the internet: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat