(04 December 2014) – In 2013, 842 million passengers travelled by air in the EU28, a rise of 1.7% compared with 2012. London/Heathrow continued to be the busiest passenger airport.
Looking back over a longer period, air passenger transport fell to 753 million passengers in 2009 following the financial crisis. Since then it has steadily risen.
In 2013, intra-EU transport represented 43.3% of total air passenger transport in the EU28, followed by extra-EU transport (38.6%), while national transport accounted for fewer than 1 in every 5 passengers (18.1%).
The highest numbers of air passengers were recorded in the United Kingdom (210 million, +3.6% compared with 2012), Germany (181 mn, +1.2%), Spain (158 mn, -1.3%), France (138 mn, +2.3%) and Italy (115 mn, -0.7%).
London/Heathrow remained the EU’s busiest passenger airport in 2013, with 72 million passengers handled, up by 3.4% compared with 2012. Paris/Charles de Gaulle (62 mn, +0.8%) and Frankfurt/Main (58 mn, +1.1%) were the second and third busiest airports. London/Heathrow (43 million) continued to handle in 2013 the most passengers on extra-EU transport and Amsterdam/Schiphol (29 mn) the most on intra-EU transport, while Paris/Orly (14 mn) overtook Madrid/Barajasas the first passenger airport for national transport.