European air traffic grows +4.5% in H1 2025, driven by international demand
ACI EUROPE’s June, Q2 and H1 traffic report shows continued resilience in passenger traffic across the continent – with growth entirely driven by international travel, and with widening performance gaps between markets.
Passenger traffic across the European airport network increased by +4.5% in H1 2025 compared with the same period last year, with growth steady in both Q1 (+4.3%) and Q2 (+4.6%). International traffic grew by +5.7%, while domestic traffic remained essentially flat (+0.2%). Overall, passenger volumes stood at +5.1% above pre-pandemic (H1 2019) levels.
Airports in the EU+ market grew by +4.3% in H1, with sharp regional contrasts: Slovakia (+19.2%), Poland (+14.9%) and Hungary (+14.2%) posted the strongest results, whilst Sweden (-0.9%) and Estonia (+0.2%) lagged behind. Amongst the largest EU+ markets, Italy (+5.7%) and Spain (+4.5%) outperformed, whilst France (+3.6%), the UK (+2.3%) and Germany (+2.3%) underperformed the EU+ average.
By airport size, Major airports (40 million+ passengers) recorded the weakest growth at +3.3%, whilst Large (10–25 million passengers) and Medium airports (1–10 million passengers) led at +5.4%, boosted by low-cost expansion and strong leisure demand. Small airports (less than 1 million passengers), at +5.1%, remain the only segment not yet back to pre-pandemic levels (-32.9%).
