Brussels, Belgium – In 2012 there was a total of 26,100 average daily flights in Europe. This is a decline of 2.67% compared to 2011. The decrease was spread unevenly across countries and market segments, with low cost and charter and eastern European countries seeing growth in numbers of flights while western Europe and the traditional market segments decreased.

In 2012, low-cost and chartered airlines saw increases of 1.4% and 2.6% respectively compared to 2011. In contrast, traditional scheduled air traffic – which accounts for half of total flights – business aviation and all-cargo suffered a decline of some 4-5% year-on-year.

Some countries, in particular in eastern Europe, saw an increase in traffic during the year. Turkey, Norway, Poland, Ukraine and Estonia together had an extra 240 flights per day (excluding overflights). This increase was offset by reductions in the busiest countries. Spain was the main contributor to the decline with 290 fewer flights per day. Italy and Germany saw roughly half that decrease with around 140 fewer flights daily.

The results of this pattern can be seen in the figures for the busiest airports per average daily departures. Among the busiest hubs, all but two had decreases. Madrid Barajas shrank by 13.3%. Other major airports, like Paris CDG, Frankfurt Main, Heathrow, Munich and Rome Fiumicino, were in negative figures, ranging from -1.3% to almost -5%. The only two airports delivering growth out of the 10 busiest are Istanbul-Ataturk – which is becoming an increasingly important hub in the east with steady and strong 12.2% growth – and Amsterdam Schiphol, which remains stable with gains of 0.3%.

With fuel prices remaining high and the economic recovery delayed yet again, EUROCONTROL’s current forecast is for a slight decline in traffic in 2013. We expect this to be revised further downwards in the new forecast due out at the end of February.

For more forecasts, please refer to the latest information available at the date of publication: EUROCONTROL Two-Year Forecast (December 2012).

The press release is available here: http://www.eurocontrol.int/press-releases/2012-overall-traffic-falls-growth-low-cost-and-charters