Following the beating they took during the Covid-19 pandemic, European airports do not expect a full return to normal business before 2025.
In May of this year, the Airports Council International Europe (ACI Europe) forecast that a full recovery of the sector was expected in 2024. But on Tuesday it revised this prediction, pushing it back to 2025.
"Passenger traffic has made a strong comeback since last Spring and has so far been very resilient in the face of increasing geopolitical and economic headwinds," Olivier Jankovec, Director General of ACI Europe, said.
“However, we now expect the passenger traffic to level off with the timeline pushed to 2025 before Europe’s airports finally get back to where they stood before Covid-19 hit. Next year, we will still miss 220 million passengers, meaning our volumes will only match 2017 levels.”
This is largely due to geopolitical risks and recession now affecting European markets; soaring inflation has pushed airfares up considerably pulling back on demand.
The travel restrictions imposed by the Chinese authorities as part of their zero-tolerance policy to Covid-19 have also hindered recovery, as well as increased airport competition.
Back to the old days?
All these factors will impact airports differently depending on their location, size, market position and business model. This means the increasing gaps in traffic performance which we already see across our footprint are here to stay, at least as we move through the year to come, the group noted.
"It is becoming an increasingly mixed bag of impacts and outcomes. We expect several airport markets – especially those relying predominantly on tourism – to exceed their pre-pandemic passenger volumes as soon as next year. But many others will not fare so well and take much longer to recover," Jankovec noted.
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He concluded: “On the longer horizon, once the last impacts of Covid-19 have finally departed, European airports will face higher levels of risk than in the past. Our regulators must reflect and fully account for this.”
