The Queen of Europe is Fiumicino. Or perhaps, it would be better to say the King, since we are talking about airports. In the standings elaborated byInternational Airports Association (Aci), to which 450 airports in 45 European countries adhere, it is the Leonardo da Vinci that has recorded the highest growth in passengers in the EU area, an increase of 10,6%. If, on the other hand, they are also considered non-EU airports (area including Iceland, Norway, Russia, Switzerland and Türkiye) is Istanbul Ataturk to conquer the golden palm, with a + 12,8%. The data, released in January, refer to November 2014.
During the year, the increase recorded by ACI on all types of flights, whether networked (large companies), low cost or charter, is more than satisfactory (+5,3-+5,4 %) and confirms the trend already underway since last summer as he wanted to underline Olivier Jankovec, director general of Aci Europa: “Traffic at EU airports continues to significantly improve its growth, with Greece, Luxembourg, Belgium, Ireland, Romania Portugal and Croatia which achieve double-digit increases, mainly driven by low-cost airlines”.
On the other hand, traffic at Russian airports is decreasing in parallel with the Ukrainian ones. Israel also slows down, while Moldova, Serbia, Iceland and Türkiye are very dynamic. The Istanbul-Ataturk airport is confirmed for the fourth consecutive time as the third largest European airport immediately after London-Heathrow and Paris-Charles de Gaulle.
In drawing up its November ranking, Aci considered 207 airports which represent a total of 88% of European passenger traffic. The airports have been divided into four "classes" based on the number of passengers carried: group 1 exceeds 25 million passengers, group 2 is between 10 and 25 million, group 3 between 5 and 10 million and finally the fourth group stops at 5 million passengers transported. Here then the complete ranking based on growth registered in November 2014:
Group 1: Istanbul IST (+12.8%), Rome FCO (+10.6%), Madrid (+9.3%), London Gatwick (+5.7%), Moscow DME & Amsterdam (+5.4%).
Group 2: Athens (+27.5%), London Stansted (+25.8%), Brussels (+18.2%), Istanbul SAW (+15.4%) and Lisbon (+14.3%).
Group 3: Crete-Heraklion (+14.4%), Izmir (+13.5%), Berlin Schonefeld (+13.2%), Milan-Orio al Serio (+12.7%) and Porto-Portugal (+12.4%).
Group 4: Santorini (+69.0%), Crete-Chania (+67.0%), Kefalonia (+58.5%), Chisinau-Moldova (+43.9%) and Burgas-Bulgaria (+41.5%).
