Europe's top 5 busiest airports in 2021
2021 was supposed to be the year of restart, and actually until mid-December things seemed to be going [...]
2021 was supposed to be the year of the restart, and actually until mid-December things seemed to be going in the right direction. The reopening of the U.S. borders on November 8 had given the final boost, but then came the omicron variant to pull the handbrake and stop the takeoffs.
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Traffic figures for European airports in 2021 take a very different picture than pre-pandemic, suffice it to say that London Heathrow and Frankfurt are out of the Top5.
#5 Moscow Domodedovo
With 25 million passengers, the Russian capital's second largest airport takes fifth place. The airport more than doubled its passengers from 2020, numbers still far from pre-pandemic records. Playing in the Russian airport's favor was freedom of travel within the Russian federation, while many global destinations were precluded due to the non-recognition of the Sputnik V vaccine.
#4 Amsterdam Schipol
Amsterdam Airport, the home of KLM, cannot rely on domestic traffic; on the contrary, the Dutch carrier has continued to fly around the world. About 25.5 million passengers passed through here in the year just ended. A growth of nearly 4 million over the previous year.
#3 Paris Charles De Gaulle
With just under 26 million 200,000 passengers, Paris' main airport and Air France's hub remains third on the European podium of busiest airports. The freedom of intra-EU travel and the intercontinental network have made CDG an airport for so many passengers.
#2 Moscow Sheremetyevo
The Russian capital occupies two places in the TOP5 thanks to domestic traffic and routes that have remained open for local passengers compared to what happened to European passengers.
#1 Istanbul
The full-year 2021 numbers are out and we finally have a picture of how European airports performed during the second pandemic-affected year.
I've created a visualization to show where the Top 20 are located. #airports #avgeek pic.twitter.com/RgXxF4Td4v
- Jakob Wert (@SpieleWERT) February 2, 2022
The Turkish capital's new airport literally made a splash by registering more than 37 million passengers.
The new home of Turkish Airlines has acted as a bridge between Europe, the U.S. and Asia by taking advantage of the fact that the nation has stayed out of major bans and bans imposed by various governments around the world.
The first Italian airport is only in 17th place, we are talking about Rome Fiumicino closing almost out of the top20. In addition to the pandemic, the cause is the Alitalia crisis, which has severely affected traffic at the Italian capital's airport.
Among the busiest definitely stands out the 13th place of thePalma de Mallorca Airport, Balearic island invaded by tourists in the summer just past, so many that Lufthansa even used 747s. to fly from Frankfurt and meet the very high demand.