Airport, EU – Baltic States, Good for Business, Lithuania, Transport

Looking back over a longer period, air passenger transport fell to 753 million passengers in 2009 following the financial crisis. Since then it has steadily risen. In 2013, intra-EU transport represented 43.3% of total air passenger transport in the EU28, followed by extra-EU transport (38.6%), while national transport accounted for fewer than 1 in every 5 passengers (18.1%).

In 2013, the highest numbers of air passengers were recorded in the United Kingdom (210 million, +3.6% compared with 2012), Germany (181 million, +1.2%), Spain (158 million, –1.3%), France (138 million, +2.3%) and Italy (115 million, –0.7%).

On average across the EU28, the number of air passengers rose by 1.7% between 2012 and 2013, with the largest increases in Luxembourg (+14.5%), Malta (+10.5%) and Lithuania (+10.0%), while decreases were observed in six Member States: in Estonia (-11.1%), Cyprus (-4.3%), Spain (-1.3%), Austria (-0.8%), Italy (-0.7%) and Slovakia (-0.4%).

London/Heathrow remained the EU's busiest passenger airport in 2013, with 72 million passengers handled, up by 3.4% compared with 2012. Paris/Charles de Gaulle (62 million, +0.8%) and Frankfurt/Main (58 million, +1.1%) were the second and third busiest airports, followed by Amsterdam/Schiphol (53 million, +3.0%), Madrid/Barajas (40 million,-12.1%) and Munchen (39 million, +0.9%).