New figures show Ireland and the UK had the biggest year-on-year increases in air passengers in Europe in July.
Airports Council International data shows Ireland up 386.5% in July, with the UK having the second-biggest resurgence, a 349.6% bounce back.
The percentage increases are far ahead of other nations, with the third-biggest increase in Finland at 268% and Slovakia, the fourth-biggest rise at 167%.
ACI reported traffic across the European airport market was up 70.4% year on year in July. However, there is still some ground to make up, with UK airports operating 19% below July 2019 levels, the ACI said.
Olivier Jankovec, ACI director general, said: “July has kept delivering a much-needed boost in passenger traffic for most of Europe’s airports, driven by predominantly leisure travel, as well as ultra-low-cost carriers expanding capacity well above pre-pandemic levels.”
Airports in Greece (+5.4%), Luxembourg (+2.2%) and Iceland (+1.7%) achieved a full recovery in 2019 – closely followed by those in Portugal (-1.8%), Romania (-2.9%) and Lithuania (-3%).
Spain’s airports showed good recovery in July, down only 7.9% compared with 2019, with Italy’s down 9.6% and France’s – 13.5%
