European airline traffic approached pre-Covid levels during the peak summer travel month of July despite fast-rising fares, according to the latest figures from airports association ACI Europe.

ACI Europe said that traffic reached 97 per cent of 2019 levels in July, the best performance for the European aviation sector since the start of the pandemic in early 2020.

Olivier Jankovec, director general of ACI Europe, said: “The consumer confidence resilience and continued momentum in the traffic recovery is even more remarkable considering the cost-of-living crisis and record increases in airfares.”

Jankovec also highlighted “performance variations between national and individual airport markets”, which have become a trend of the sector’s post-Covid recovery – just over half of Europe’s airports (51 per cent) remain below 2019 passenger traffic volumes.

“These performance variations reflect a mix of factors – from the impact of the war in Ukraine to the impressive but selective capacity expansion of ultra-low-cost carriers and relative retrenchment of network carriers, as well as some domestic traffic shifting to other transport modes,” added Jankovec.

The performance of Europe’s hub airports continues to lag that of smaller and regional airports, with overall traffic at the five largest airports still down by 4.3 per cent in July compared to July 2019.

“This was due to less dynamic hub carrier capacity deployment and the sluggish return of demand from China. Compared to July 2022, passenger volumes still increased by 15.1 per cent, thanks notably to strong transatlantic demand,” added ACI Europe in its analysis of the latest figures.

London Heathrow “asserted its position” as Europe’s busiest airport in July with traffic just 1.2 per cent lower than in 2019. But Istanbul in second place was the only top five hub to exceed pre-Covid traffic during the month with traffic up by 16.5 per cent on July 2019.

Other major European hubs remain at least 10 per cent below pre-pandemic traffic levels: Paris Charles de Gaulle (-11.5 per cent on July 2019), Frankfurt (-13.1 per cent) and Amsterdam Schiphol (-10.6 per cent).