How did European airports perform in 2024?

2024 was a pivotal year for European airports, as they finally turned the corner from the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of passenger volumes. It was a year marked by both challenges and achievements. In this article, we aim to provide a comprehensive analysis of the performance of over 30 airports within the ACI EUROPE Airport Performance Network across the year.

By Jeffrey Schäfer from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol and Pieter Callewaert from Brussels Airport Company, the chair team of the ACI EUROPE Airport Performance Network, and Charles Walker, Aviation Intelligence Unit, EUROCONTROL.

Despite facing significant disruptions due to severe weather, airspace congestion, and the impact of major events like the Paris Olympics, European airports demonstrated remarkable resilience in 2024.

As we look back, we note the progress achieved by European airports in both arrival and departure punctuality compared with 2023, at the same time advocating for continued innovation and cooperation to better address challenges in the future.

Comparing performance: 2024 vs. 2023

For the full year of 2024, at the 30+ airports part of ACI EUROPE’s Airport Performance Network, 72.4% of flights arrived and 65.8% departed on-time. This is an increase of 1.8% in on-time arrival and 2% in on-time departure: highlighting the resilience of the industry. Additionally, the difference between punctuality of arriving and departing flights (6.6%) has stabilised, which is a positive indicator of the efforts taken by airports to improve turnaround performance and reduce time lost on the ground.

The year at a glance: main contributing factors

2024 was a challenging year with a very distinct seasonal pattern. The winter saw multiple weather related disruptions across Europe due to snow and freezing temperatures, strong wind, as well as low visibility impacting operations.

As the number of flights and passengers ramped up across Europe in spring with the start of the Summer season at the end of March, congestion-related delays impacted the punctuality of a larger share of flights.

During summer punctuality hit its lowest point in July. Notably the Olympic games hosted in Paris caused heavy delays due to airspace closure and re-routings as a result. Moreover, summer has seen a very large increase in Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM) delays over Europe due to ATC staffing, ATC capacity and adverse weather. These delays have put significant strain on airport operators due to the delayed onward connection of passengers and baggage but moreover the off-schedule flying aircraft relying on the resolve and resilience of airports to absorb these disruptions.

More volatile weather over Europe in autumn brought an increase inthe number of low-visibility days, strong winds and even the first snow-affected operations. This continued in winter but as this coincided with the reduction in the number of scheduled flights to regular low-season numbers, operational circumstances and punctuality improved.

Main operational challenges for European airports

Airspace Capacity Delays

Air Traffic Flow Management delays in 2024 were at an all-time high. The prevailing issues were linked to, most notably, airspace and runway congestion. These delays forced flights to hold on the aircraft stand awaiting departure clearance, thus also blocking the stand for subsequent arrivals. This not only delays the aircraft directly landing or departing but causes a snowball effect in the tight scheduling of flights. The combination of these delays further deteriorated punctuality as the turnarounds and transfer of onward bags, cargo and passengers were also delayed at the hubs. 

Airspace-related (ATFM) delays and regulations increased significantly compared to summer 2023. This was partly due to airspace overdemand, but also due to adverse weather conditions increasingly hampering the flow of aircraft through central European airspace. 

Additionally, while the number of flight movements came close to 2019, the size of our usable airspace continues to be significantly smaller due to the ongoing war in Ukraine and subsequent impact on European airspace usage, further increasing ATFM delays.

Adverse weather

The adverse weather over Central Europe this summer caused significant airspace restrictions, on top of the familiar flow regulations which were present, also causing significant delays from the first morning wave onward for multiple airports. 

In particular, the Central to Southeast Europe corridor (between Austria and Greece) had to endure severe restrictions due to adverse weather, on top of the usual peak-capacity related delays due to capacity constraints at airport level.

One observation multiple airports highlighted was that when certain airspace sectors experienced adverse weather and had to regulate or re-route traffic, the surrounding sectors also significantly reduced capacity to prevent overdemand in their airspace. This process resulted in cascading delays on flights which were operating totally outside the (truly) affected airspace sectors.

Snowballs, all year round

The most significant consequence of all delays comes from the knock-on effects. For example, when a flight lands at its destination with significant delay, the handling agent often isn’t present at the stand to park the aircraft. This is due to the fact that the ground handlers and other service providers usually plan their required resources based on schedules. This delay is potentially carried on throughout the turnaround and is likely to lead to further additional delay for the next departure. Additionally, at the hub airports, the knock-on effects of a delayed arrival on transferring passengers, bags and cargo affects countless onward flights.

Saving the day in the morning

Significant emphasis has been placed by ACI EUROPE, EUROCONTROL and IATA on prioritising first rotations – as in, the first departure of every aircraft  in the morning – to mitigate knock-on delays throughout the day (especially in summer) and enhance the departure punctuality targets set by airlines and airports. While this strategy effectively reduces knock-on delays, it has also introduced challenges, sometimes resulting in early arrivals at the destination airport, due to the buffer that airlines include in their flight schedules. These early arrivals create even greater operational complexity, as the expected demand arrives before the necessary facilities and ground handling services are ready, necessitating re-planning and affecting actual on-time arrivals.

The problem of flights arriving too early is in fact a long-standing and increasing one. A large number of flights, especially in the morning, arrive significantly (15-30 minutes and more) before their scheduled arrival times, triggering unforeseen peaks at airports and the surrounding airspace, which puts pressure on the airport operation and in turn delays other flights. While the purpose of this is to reduce delays, it can often have the opposite effect – increasing them for later flights. While arriving early is seen as a good thing by passengers and airlines, it can create serious headaches for the airport, impacting other users of the airport negatively further down the line.

The way forward: how can we improve?

Improving punctuality is an obligation towards our passengers, at the same time fulfilling airports’ strategic objective of efficiency in operations. ACI EUROPE’s Airport Performance Network (APN) identifies two key action points to achieve better results:

1. Collaboration must be fostered, especially in times of great challenges: not only airport to airport, or between the EUROCONTROL Network Manager and airports, but collaboration is also key among airlines, airports, ground handling agents and Air Navigation Service Providers.
   
2. Harmonised implementation of technological innovations: Technological transition is an imperative in this day and age. We therefore call for harmonisation efforts, based on sharing of best practices and standards, in order to expedite innovation and boost operational performance across Europe.

Overall, airports are looking back at a successful year: despite ever increasing external and internal factors affecting punctuality, an increase in on-time performance has been noted.

There is always room for improvement, especially in driving punctuality, which is one of the reasons why ACI EUROPE’s APN publishes monthly punctuality reports. These are drawn from a sample of key airports across Europe and can be used to observe the evolution of arrival and departure punctuality, determine the reasons for specific shifts in performance, and to begin managing and improving performance. A proactive and coordinated approach based on information sharing between stakeholders is one of the key means in ensuring such improvement, which has clearly shown its merits this year. We now have to uphold this as standard for the years to come.

About ACI EUROPE APN

The Airport Performance Network – Europe (APN – Europe) brings together ACI EUROPE members to discuss issues relating to airport punctuality and performance management. The group was established in 2009 with the objective of standardising the reporting of airport punctuality data, to exchange best practices concerning operational performance and predictability at European airports.