BUSINESS NEWS Air traffic data 2023: Eurocontrol figures reveal extent of sector’s recovery. Ian Taylor reports
Jet fuel price down, airfares up, emissions up
The price of jet fuel through 2023 was 20% lower on average than in 2022, but airfares rose by an average 10% in real terms, higher than the rate of inflation. Eurocontrol attributed this
to “significant growth in demand and traffic” and noted prices fell back in November below the level of November 2022. Total CO2 emissions from
Jet fuel cost 20% less last year
8% and 12.6% over the year but was close to 11% a day from May to October, rising to 12% in December due to severe weather. Mainline carriers such as British
flights rose 12% year on year but remained 6% below the 2019 level. Eurocontrol also records
the Excess Fuel Burn, which measures fuel wasted due to delays, rerouteings and holding patterns. This varied between
Airways retained the biggest share of the European market at 35% but remained 11% down in carryings on 2019. Eurocontrol suggested most of the shortfall was “due to the weakness of domestic markets” in Germany, France and Scandinavia. These are markets where there is growing pressure not to fly when alternative forms of transport are available. Low-cost carriers took a 33% share, with traffic just 4% below the 2019 level.
Strikes and weather hit Europe flight punctuality
The punctuality of arrivals across the European air network fell more than seven percentage points on 2019 last year to 71% and was slightly below the 2022 level. That is according to European
air traffic safety body Eurocontrol, which reported departures punctuality was lower at 65%, 7.5 percentage points down on 2019. Air traffic control (ATC) delays
were a major reason. Yet UK ATC was responsible for just 4% of the delays in 2023. By contrast, France accounted for 37% and Germany 26%, with “capacity/staffing the main underlying issue”. Eurocontrol noted ATC strikes in
France during the first half of the year and an increase in extreme weather events during the summer “had a significant impact”. There were 43 days in the year on which more than 50% of delays were due to the weather, compared with 18 in 2022 and just 11 in 2019, with bad weather accounting
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for 29% of all air traffic delays in 2023. Delays due to strikes were four
times higher than the previous year and 2.6 times higher than in 2019, with strikes on 54 days accounting for more than 50% of delays, almost all in France. The closure of Ukrainian
airspace since February 2022 had led to diverted flights “overloading” airspace to the west of the country and “higher en-route delays”. The war waged by Israel in Gaza from October 2023 also “affected various flows unable to overfly the zone”. July saw the most en-route
delays, followed by June and August, with a substantial proportion of these due to bad weather. Eurocontrol noted Gatwick
and Lisbon airports saw “frequent capacity regulations”. In the case of Gatwick, this was due to a shortage of air traffic controllers. Europe’s air traffic hit 92% of the 2019 level in May and June, 93% from
Only 71% of flights arrived on time last year
July to September and 95% in October before settling back at 92% as “some operators started to cut capacity”. The UK saw an average 5,290
flights a day during the year, up 13% on 2022 but 10% down on 2019. However, that was half the shortfall in Germany where traffic remained 20% down on 2019 and domestic air traffic down by more than one-third. Spain was Europe’s busiest
aviation market after the UK, with more than 4,600 flights a day, on a par with 2019.
25 JANUARY 2024 87
Europe’s air traffic rebounds to 92% of the 2019 level
European air traffic closed at 92% of the 2019 level last year although 10% up on 2022, according to Eurocontrol data. Intra-European traffic was up 8% on 2022 although it remained down 6% on 2019. Traffic between Europe and the Middle East rose 17% year on year to just 1% shy of the 2019 level, and traffic between Europe and the Asia- Pacific increased by 33% to within 10% of the pre-pandemic level. However, the strongest market
was the North Atlantic, which saw growth of 14% year on year to take it 4% above the level of 2019. Traffic at Europe’s 40 largest
airports hit 94% of 2019’s level. Two destinations, Greece
and Turkey, saw summer 2023 traffic higher than in 2019 and Spain was on a par. However, Eurocontrol
noted schedules for the current winter season were “lower than anticipated” and the expected number of flights had been reduced. It forecast the number of
flights in 2024 would reach 98% of 2019 levels with some months “likely to see the same or higher numbers” than pre-pandemic. Heathrow returned to within 4% of its 2019 traffic, 20% up on 2022. That put it behind Istanbul and Amsterdam Schiphol airports but ahead of Paris Charles de Gaulle and Frankfurt. Gatwick was 18% up on 2022 but 10% down on 2019.
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Traffic at Europe’s top-40 airports was 94% of 2019’s level
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