Heathrow retained its crown as Europe’s busiest city airport despite passenger numbers still not fully recovering to pre-Covid levels.
The latest data from analysts Cirium shows that in 2022 the west London hub handled flights covering nearly 100 billion ‘Available Seat Kilometers’ (ASK), a key metric used by the industry.
Paris rival airport Charles de Gaulle was far behind with around 70 billion ASK, followed by Istanbul Main Airport with just over 60 billion.
London was the only city with two airports in the top 10 and three in the top 25. Gatwick was ninth with around 25 billion ASK, while Stansted was 25th.
Heathrow has long dominated this measure of airport activity as it handles many long-haul flights. The airport was hit hard by the pandemic when it lost its place as Europe’s busiest airport in terms of passenger numbers.
In 2022, Heathrow was still 24% smaller in terms of ASK than it was in 2019, while some other top hubs, such as Istanbul’s main airport, saw growth.
But London with its five airports, Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and Southend, remains the world’s busiest aviation city ahead of New York despite capacity constraints.
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