{"id":263,"date":"2026-06-05T21:45:56","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T21:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naftimes.com\/?p=263"},"modified":"2026-06-05T21:45:56","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T21:45:56","slug":"iran-war-strikes-ees-why-the-number-of-people-flying-in-europe-is-dropping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naftimes.com\/?p=263","title":{"rendered":"Iran war, strikes, EES: Why the number of people flying in Europe is dropping"},"content":{"rendered":"

An industry group says that while marginal, the decline \u201cmarks a significant milestone\u201d for Europe\u2019s aviation sector.<\/h2>\n
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For the first time since Europe\u2019s air transport recovery after the Covid-19 pandemic, passenger traffic has fallen year-on-year.<\/h4>\n
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The number of flyers across the European airport network dropped by -0.7% in April 2026 compared to the same month last year, according to European airport trade body ACI EUROPE.<\/h4>\n

The group says that while marginal, the decline \u201cmarks a significant milestone\u201d.<\/h4>\n

Why are fewer people flying in Europe?<\/h2>\n

ACI EUROPE says April\u2019s performance reflects a combination of factors, including the\u00a0conflict in the Middle East, the partial shift of the Easter holidays into March this year, and industrial action heavily affecting the German market.<\/h4>\n

Some airports are continuing to expand. The best EU+ performances came from\u00a0airports<\/a>\u00a0in Slovakia (+125.2%), Slovenia (+14.6%), Estonia (+12.1%), Malta (+13.5%) and Poland (+8.3%).<\/h4>\n

Among the largest EU+ markets, Spain (+3.7%) and Italy (+2.2%) posted the best results.<\/h4>\n

However, airports in Germany (-8.5%), the UK (-2.1%), and France (-0.9%) saw passenger volumes receding. Cyprus (-16.1%) and Iceland (-11.7%) registered the steepest decreases, followed by those in Austria (-7.4%) and Switzerland (-6.1%).<\/h4>\n

Europe\u2019s biggest and smallest airports were most impacted<\/h4>\n

Overall, \u2018major\u2019\u00a0airports\u00a0(-3.5%), along with \u2018mega\u2019 airports (-1%) and \u2018large\u2019 airports (+0.1%), were the segments most impacted by the conflict in the Middle East, as they concentrate most of Europe\u2019s connectivity to the region.<\/h4>\n

Amongst the majors, Barcelona (+4.1%), Madrid (+3.3%) and Amsterdam-Schiphol (+2.7%) were the only ones seeing passenger traffic increase in April.<\/h4>\n

Munich (-16.4%) and Frankfurt (-11%) posted the sharpest decrease, largely due to no less than seven days of industrial action during the month.<\/h4>\n
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Istanbul Airport (-6.8%) and Istanbul Sabiha G\u00f6k\u00e7en (-3.4%) \u2013 usually top performers \u2013 both contracted in April, with volumes also declining at London Gatwick (-8.8%) and London Heathrow (-5.34%). Meanwhile, Rome-Fiumicino (-0.6%) and Paris-CDG (0.0%) were essentially flat.<\/h4>\n

Conversely, \u2018medium\u2019 airports (+2.1%) and \u2018small\u2019 airports (+5.5%), whose route network is predominantly intra-European, remained largely insulated, on the back of\u00a0low-cost carriers\u00a0not reducing capacity and some demand shifting from long-haul to medium\/short-haul travel.<\/h4>\n

Small airports, however, kept faring the worst when compared to pre\u2011pandemic (2019) levels at -27.7%, reflecting structurally changed market conditions and significant financial viability challenges.<\/h4>\n

EES system remains an \u2018immediate concern\u2019<\/h4>\n

Olivier Jankovec, Director General of ACI EUROPE, says April marks a clear inflexion point for European air traffic.<\/h4>\n

\u201cWhile we were already seeing a normalisation of passenger traffic growth after the strong post-pandemic bounce-back, geopolitical instability \u2013 most notably the war in the\u00a0Middle East\u00a0\u2013 is now further weighing on growth and exposing significant differences in performance across markets,\u201d he says.<\/h4>\n
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\u201cThe encouraging news is that demand generally remains strong, airlines capacity adjustments limited, and fears over potential jet fuel shortages have eased.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Jankovec adds, however, that the most immediate concern remains \u201cthe severe disruptions and hardship imposed upon passengers by border control processes linked to the Schengen\u00a0Entry\/Exit System\u201d.<\/h4>\n

\u201cUnless authorities are allowed to introduce greater flexibility, including fully suspending the system where operationally necessary, disruptions for passengers will intensify over the coming weeks and months,\u201d he says.<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An industry group says that while marginal, the decline \u201cmarks a significant milestone\u201d for Europe\u2019s aviation sector. For the first time since Europe\u2019s air transport recovery after the Covid-19 pandemic, passenger traffic has fallen year-on-year. The number of flyers across the European airport network dropped by -0.7% in April 2026 compared to the same month […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naftimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naftimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naftimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naftimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naftimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/naftimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":265,"href":"https:\/\/naftimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263\/revisions\/265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naftimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naftimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naftimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naftimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}