Data show that in 2024, all EU countries registered an increase in the number of passengers carried by air compared with 2023. Hungary (+19.2 percent), Czechia (+18.9 percent) and Estonia (+17.8 percent) reported the largest increases, while the lowest ones were in Sweden (+1.3 percent), Bulgaria (+3.8 percent) and France and Ireland (both +4.6 percent).

Out of the 27 EU countries, 10 increased by more than 10 percent in terms of extra-EU traffic. The remaining EU countries recorded increases between 1.9 percent and 9.2 percent.

Among all countries, Cyprus experienced the highest increase in national passenger transport with 793 passengers in 2024 while there were only four passengers in 2023.

Eleven EU countries recorded a drop in domestic passenger transport in 2024 compared with 2024. Slovakia also recorded a large increase, by 70.6 percent. The largest decrease was observed in the Netherlands (-67.3 percent), followed by Hungary (-52.7 percent). The large changes in percentage observed for these four countries should be interpreted in the context of their initially low values. There was no national transport reported for Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, and Slovenia.

This information comes from data on air transport published by Eurostat. The article presents a selection of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained articles on air passenger transport statistics and on air freight transport. 

Increase in air freight and mail transport 

Total air freight and mail transport in the EU also saw an increase of 8.7 percent in 2024 compared with 2023. It was driven by a 10.8 percent growth in extra-EU transport, while intra-EU transport was almost stable at +0.1 percent and domestic transport fell by 4.3 percent. 

At national level, Hungary (+65.9 percent), Czechia (+43.7 percent) and Greece (+36.7 percent) recorded the highest increases, while only Poland (-3.6 percent) and Latvia (-2.7 percent) registered declines.

Top nine airports for air passenger transport remain the same 

In 2024, among the 10 EU airports recording the biggest numbers of passengers carried were Paris/Charles de Gaulle, with 70.3 million passengers (+4.3 percent), Amsterdam/Schiphol, 66.8 million passengers (+8 percent), Madrid/Barajas, 66.1 million (+9.9 percent), Frankfurt/Main, 61.5 million (+3.7 percent) and Barcelona/El Prat, which recorded 54.9 million (+10.3 percent).  

Roma/Fiumicino placed sixth with 48.7 million passengers, although saw the highest increase among the top 10 airports (+20.8 percent). Athinai/Eleftherios Venizelos moved ahead and replaced Paris-Orly in 2024, securing the 10th place thanks to a significant passenger growth compared with 2023 (+19.6 percent).