Europe’s passenger traffic maintained positive momentum during the first quarter of 2025 (Q1) — although growth has slowed down compared to previous years, signalling post‑Covid traffic recovery consolidation.

The latest traffic report released by ACI EUROPE today reveals that passenger traffic across the European airport network increased by +4.3% during Q1 2025 over the same period last year. This compares to a growth of +10.2% in Q1 2024 vs. Q1 2023. When compared to pre‑pandemic (Q1 2019) levels, passenger traffic stood at +3.2%.

The growth in passenger volumes in Q1 2025 was entirely driven by international traffic (+5.7%) as domestic traffic remained flat (0%) when compared to the same period last year. When compared to pre‑pandemic (Q1 2019) levels, international passenger traffic in Q1 2025 stood at +8.9% while domestic passenger traffic remained at ‑12.8%. 

The year‑on‑year monthly growth decelerated in Q1 2025 — from +6.9% in January through +3.4% in February and +3% in March, with the latter reflecting Easter falling in April this year.

Freight and aircraft movements

Freight traffic across Europe's airports declined ‑1.7% year‑on‑year in Q1 2025 — with EU+ airports at ‑1.5% and non‑EU+ ones at ‑3.2%.

Amongst the top 10 European airports for freight traffic, the best results came from Madrid (+7.6%), Liège (+5.8%), Cologne/Bonn (+4.9%) and Frankfurt (+0.8%).

Aircraft movements in Q1 2025 rose by +3.7% compared to the same period last year but still remained ‑5.3% below pre‑pandemic levels.

Data by airport groups

In Q1 2025, airports welcoming more than 40 million passengers (Majors), airports welcoming between 25 and 40 million passengers (Mega), airports welcoming between 10 and 25 million passengers (Large), airports welcoming between 1 and 10 million passengers (Medium) and airports welcoming less than 1 million passengers (Small) reported an average increase of +3.0%, +3.9%, +6.1%, +3.6% and +13.4% as compared to the preceding year.

The integral version of the report (four pages) is attached to this AVIONEWS.