Istanbul Airport ranks first in Europe

Antalya Airport, on the other hand, ranked 19th with its daily average. / Istanbul Airport ranks first in Europe

The European Air Navigation Safety Organization (EUROCONTROL) published the report covering the period from 1 January to 6 December.

Accordingly, while 25,569 flights were carried out daily across Europe, this figure was 83.1 percent of 2019, which was before the epidemic period.

Operated by İGA, Istanbul Airport became the busiest airport in Europe in 11 months with an average of 1,206 flights per day. Istanbul Airport was followed by Amsterdam Schiphol Airport with 1,147 flights, Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport with 1,120 flights, and Frankfurt Airport with 1,54 flights. London Heathrow Airport ranked fifth with 1,38 flights.

Antalya Airport, on the other hand, became the 19th busiest airport in Europe with an average of 545 flights per day.

On the other hand, THY maintained its place in the third place among the airlines with the most flights in Europe with 1,249 daily flights and the first among the flag carrier airlines.

Istanbul Airport, where a total of 388 thousand 461 aircraft traffic was carried out in 11 months of this year, 100 thousand 950 on domestic flights and 287 thousand 511 on international flights, hosted more than 59 million passengers this year.

The new ranking of the largest airports in Europe

After the difficult years during the corona pandemic, air traffic in Europe has now largely returned to normal, although there is still a significant drop in passenger numbers at many airports compared to 2019. This is shown by the current data from the European airport association ACI. The ranking of the largest airports in Europe at a glance.

For a long time, London Heathrow Airport was the number 1 largest airport in Europe in terms of passenger volume. But another airport has held this title for three years now: Istanbul Airport, which only opened in 2018. As the industry portal “Aerotelegraph” writes, citing data from the European airport association ACI Europe, around 53 million passengers were handled in Istanbul in the first ten months of this year alone. However, the passenger volume was still 7.7 percent lower than in the same period before the pandemic in 2019.

With 50.1 million passengers handled, London Heathrow was the second largest airport in Europe. However, it is still well below the level before the Corona crisis, the minus is 26.3 percent. The third-placed Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, which handled 47.7 million passengers from January to October 2022, also recorded similarly high losses – 26.3 percent fewer than before Corona.

Two German airports can also be found in the ranking: Frankfurt/Main in 6th place with 40.9 million passengers and a drop of 32.6 percent compared to 2019 and Munich in 10th place with 26.5 million passengers and a drop of 35, 3 percent.

The largest airports in Europe 2022

(according to passenger volume, period January to October 2022)

Istanbul
London Heathrow
Paris Charles de Gaulle
Amsterdam
Madrid
Frankfurt
Barcelona
London Gatwick
Palma de Mallorca
Munich