Last Week in Europe – Monday 14 March 2022

After five successive weeks of improvement, analysis of Eurocontrol data shows that the recovery rate for European flights (comparing 2022 movements with those during the same period in 2019) fell last week. The 7-day average, as of Saturday 12 March, was 73.9%, down one full percentage point from the previous week’s figure of 74.9%. One factor to help explain this decline was heavy snow in Turkey, which impacted Istanbul flights on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The two airports serving Istanbul are currently among the busiest in Europe when there are no weather issues. Among the 12 airlines tracked in more detail in our graph, Ryanair has again achieved the best recovery rate of 109.2%. This means that the Irish ULCC is actually operating 9% more flights than it did in mid-March 2019. Wizz Air is now second in terms of recovery rate (at just over 87%), ahead of Iberia (85%) and KLM (83%).

British Airways recovery rate passes 60% for the first time

Despite the one percentage point reduction overall, among the 12 airlines shown in the graph, eight showed an improvement in their recovery rates compared with a week earlier. The exceptions were Iberia (from 86.8% to 85.0%), Turkish Airlines (from 78.4% to 70.1% - blame the snow), Air France (from 71.3% to 69.9%) and Lufthansa (from 53.7% to 53.4%). Wizz Air (from 77.8% to 87.4%) and British Airways (from 58.9% to 63.1%) showed the biggest improvements, with the UK flag-carrier passing the 60% mark for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

Amsterdam is busiest airport for flights as snow hampers Istanbul

On Saturday 12 March the leading airline for flights in Eurocontrol airspace was Ryanair (2,246 flights), a long way ahead of easyJet (1,065), Lufthansa (871) and Air France (768). Then came KLM (627), Turkish Airlines (572), British Airways (558) and Wizz Air (444). Among airports, the busiest for flights were Amsterdam (935), London LHR (910), Frankfurt (895), Paris CDG (876) and Madrid (809). Due to snow, Istanbul IST was down in ninth with just 510 flights. 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?
• Traffic statistics for several European airlines for February?

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