Data published on December 7 by Eurostat, the statistics agency of the European Commission, showed 373 million passengers flying in 2021, 35% more than in 2020.
The 2021 increases varied among European Union member states, ranging from +10% in Ireland, +16% in Sweden and +17% in Latvia to +86% in Greece, +105% in Cyprus and +129% in Croatia, Eurostat reported, adding that the list of top five airports stayed as it was the year before, namely Paris/Charles de Gaulle, Amsterdam/Schiphol, Frankfurt/Main, Madrid/Barajas and Barcelona/El Prat.
But the revival, which came after nations engaged in a piecemeal easing of border curbs, in part to facilitate the continent-wide staging of the European football championship in mid-year, left numbers way down on the 1.04 billion registered across the bloc in 2019.
Numbers published this year by airlines and by industry bodies such as the International Air Transport Association (IATA) suggest that recovery is ongoing, however, with a return to near 2019 or pre-Covid levels reported late in the year by some carriers.