Non-Subscriber Extract
European flights reach all-time high thanks to LCCs
By Ben Vogel
18 January 2008
Low-cost carrier (LCC) traffic helped the number of flights in Europe to reach a record level in 2007, Eurocontrol has announced.
The organisation also predicted that activity will continue to rise in 2008.
Eurocontrol calculated that 10 million flight movements were made in Europe last year - an increase of 5.3 per cent over 2006. Average daily traffic in Europe in 2007 amounted to 27,676 flights, compared with 26,286 the previous year. Between them, LCCs (up by 25 per cent) and business aviation (10 per cent) accounted for nearly all of this increase.
Eastern Europe saw the strongest traffic growth "with several states seeing growth near 20 per cent", Eurocontrol stated. The Azores, the Canary Islands, Finland and Sweden recorded lower-than-average traffic increases.