Cirium shares weekly industry outlook ‘on the fly’. It looks at Europe’s busiest airports in 2022. London Heathrow once again emerged as Europe’s busiest airport, by the important measure of available seat kilometres (ASKs)* – underlining Heathrow’s importance to long-haul markets in particular. London Heathrow has led all European airports in ASKs for decades, despite its capacity limitations.

Paris Charles de Gaulle ranked second among Europe’s airports by ASKs, but the gap with Heathrow was large, as you can see in the below chart. Turkey, which straddles Europe and Asia, featured heavily with Istanbul Airport achieving third position, and Istanbul’s secondary airport (Gökçen) also making the list.

The Turkish beach resort of Antalya had its airport make the top 25 list as well. Four UK airports made the top 20, namely Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Manchester. In 2022, Heathrow was still 24% smaller in terms of ASKs than it was in 2019, while other leading hubs such as Istanbul’s main airport, recorded 2% growth.