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Last Week in Europe – Monday 21 March 2022

Posted on | Airlines, Airports, Europe, News & Analysis, Top Story

Last Week in Europe 21st March

Last week saw little change in the rate of airline recovery based on analysis of Eurocontrol data. The 7-day average recovery rate for European flights (comparing 2022 movements with those during the same period in 2019) as of Saturday 19 March, was 74.0%, up just 0.1 percentage point from the previous week’s figure of 73.9%. Ongoing unseasonal weather in Turkey continued to play a role in reducing operations in Istanbul.

Among the 12 airlines tracked in more detail in our graph, Ryanair has again achieved the best recovery rate of 110.1%. This means that the Irish ULCC is actually operating 10% more flights than it did in mid-March 2019. Wizz Air is now second in terms of recovery rate (at just over 93%), ahead of Iberia (86%) and KLM (79%).

Wizz Air recovery rate back above 90%

Among the 12 airlines shown in the graph, ten showed an improvement in their recovery rates compared with a week earlier. The exceptions were Lufthansa (which remained stable at 53.4%) and KLM, which fell from 82.7% to 78.7%. The biggest improvements came from Wizz Air (from 87.4% to 93.1%), Turkish Airlines (from 70.1% to 75.8%) and Vueling (from 72.2% to 77.2%).

Major European airlines in 2021/22

Amsterdam is busiest airport for second week as weather still impacting Istanbul

On Saturday 19 March the leading airline for flights in Eurocontrol airspace was Ryanair (2,257 flights), well ahead of easyJet (1,062), Lufthansa (888) and Turkish Airlines (842). Then came Air France (795), KLM (627), British Airways (557) and Wizz Air (467). Among airports, the busiest for flights were Amsterdam (960), Frankfurt (919), Paris CDG (915), London LHR (910), Istanbul IST (819) and Madrid (803).

Want more information on:

  • European seat capacity changes made since last week for March, April and May?
  • New routes launched in Europe during the last seven days?
  • Latest airport passenger statistics for European airports for February?
  • Latest European airline route announcements?

If so, then check out our weekly Last Week in Europe report which can be downloaded here.