Europe’s 20 biggest airports listed

Posted by: Howard Jarvis in Aviation 28. January 2019

Three major airports in the Iberian peninsula were the most successful in 2018, while Oslo joins Copenhagen in the top 20.

The year’s traffic figures from Europe’s largest airports typically trickle in during January, and now it is possible to make a list of the top 20 and their progress in 2018, Check-In.dk reports.

The top seven remain unchanged from 2017. Heathrow could consolidated its position as the biggest airport in Europe, although growth there was only 2.7% – the lowest among the five mega-hubs.

But for the first time there were more than 80 million travellers through the London airport’s terminals.

Frankfurt Airport achieved solid growth of 7.8%, but it was three Iberian Peninsula airports that overall saw the most sizeable increases.

Madrid’s Barajas airport raised passenger numbers by 8.4%, while Barcelona El-Prat hosted 6.1% more passengers through its terminals. And the capital city of Lisbon moved into the top 20 for the first time, with growth of 8.9% to 29,031,000 passengers.

Munich overtakes Gatwick
Meanwhile, Munich managed to displace London’s Gatwick from eighth place as the two airports switched places. The southern German hub grew 3.8%, while the UK capital’s second largest airport had only 1.1% more passengers.

From a Scandinavian perspective, Copenhagen came in at 15th place after Zurich and in front of Moscow’s Domodedovo airport, which is the only one on the list that retreated.

Oslo Airport rose to become part of the top 20 for the first time with an increase of 3.8% to 28.5 million passengers. On the other hand, Stockholm-Arlanda did not succeed in getting into the top 20, as an increase of 0.8% secured it in 23rd place with 26.8 million passengers.

20 biggest airports in Europe in 2018 (vs. 2017)
no. airport 2018    2017 change
1. Heathrow Airport, London    80,102,017 77,988,752    2.7%
2. Charles de Gaulle, Paris    72,229,723 69,471,442    4.0%
3. Schiphol Airport Amsterdam 71,053,157 68,515,425 3.7%
4. Frankfurt Airport 69,514,414 64,500,836 7.8%
5. Ataturk Airport, Istanbul    67,881,446 63,727,448 6.7%
6. Barajas Airport, Madrid 57,891,340 53,402,506    8.4%
7. El-Prat Airport, Barcelona 50,172,457 47,284,500    6.1%
8. Munich Airport    46,253,623    44,577,241 3.8%
9. Gatwick Airport London    46,075,407    45,561,699 1.1%
10. Sheremetyevo, Moscow    45,836,000    39,641,443 15.6%
11. Fiumicino Airport, Rome 42,995,119 40,971,881    4.9%
12. Orly Airport, Paris 33,120,685    32,042,475 3.4%
13. Dublin Airport    31,500,000 29,582,321 6.5%
14. Zurich Airport    31,113,488 29,396,094 5.8%
15. Copenhagen Airport    30,298,531 29,177,833    3.8%
16. Domodedovo, Moscow 29,400,000    30,657,854 -4.1%
17. Palma Airport 29,081,787    27,970,655 4.0%
18. Lisbon Airport    29,031,000 26,663,096    8.9%
19. Oslo Airport    28,516,220    27,479,921 3.8%
20. Manchester Airport, UK 28,292,797 27,773,303 1.7%
Sources: AENA, BAA, airports, Wikipedia