Heathrow still Europe's busiest airport, but Istanbul gaining fast

London Heathrow remained the busiest aviation hub in Europe last year but Istanbul Airport was nearly neck-and-neck and is likely to overtake it soon, an industry group said Thursday.

With 84.48 million passengers, Heathrow had a 0.7 percent increase in traffic last year, ACI Europe reported, citing the use of larger planes by airlines at "the capacity-constrained British hub".

British authorities say a third runway will be added at Heathrow but it is not expected to be ready before 2035.

Istanbul Airport, where traffic has surged since its inauguration in 2018, saw passenger growth of 5.5 percent to 84.44 million -- just 40,000 behind Heathrow.

Turkey has benefitted as a gateway between Europe and Asian destinations as well as being a hub for flights between Russia, subject to Western sanctions over its war in Ukraine, and the rest of the world. 

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Rounding out the top five European airports were Paris-Charles de Gaulle (72 million), Amsterdam-Schiphol (68.8 million) and Madrid (68.1 million).

Overall, passenger traffic across Europe climbed 4.4 percent last year to 2.6 billion people, "entirely driven by international traffic", ACI Europe said.

"Travel remains among consumers' top discretionary spending priorities -- even as geopolitics and geoeconomics are likely to further test the sector's resilience," ACI Europe's director general Olivier Jankovec said in a statement.

The sector continues to benefit as well from the post-Covid pandemic travel restrictions, and traffic growth is expected to "normalise" at around 3.3 percent this year, Jankovec said.

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