Downward demand pressures on airlines could become a reality next winter amid “unprecedented” economic uncertainties after US president Donald Trump unleashed a raft of global tariffs.
The warning came from the head of Europe’s airports association as passenger growth levels dropped back throughout the first quarter of the year.
ACI Europe reported a fading post-pandemic travel boom in the first three months of 2025.
Growth slowed across the European airport network to 4.3% over the same period last year. This compared to growth of 10.2% in there first quarter of 2024 against Q1 2023.
Passenger traffic in the period was up just 3.2% compared pre-pandemic 2019 first quarter levels.
This year’s first quarter growth was entirely driven by international traffic (+5.7%) as domestic traffic remained flat when compared to the same period last year.
International passenger traffic was up 8.9% against the equivalent pre-Covid period, while domestic passenger traffic remained at 12.8% down.
The year‑on‑year monthly growth decelerated in the quarter, from 6.9% up in January to 3.4% in February and 3% in March, with the latter reflecting Easter falling in April this year.
ACI Europe director general Olivier Jankovec said: “Our Q1 data shows that the post‑pandemic travel boom is fading as we are moving towards ‘normalised’ growth rates in passenger volumes, with demand generally remaining resilient so far.
“This reflects consumers prioritising experiences despite an increasingly challenging economic environment, along with the dynamism of aviation markets in the wastern and southern parts of our continent and central Asia.”
He added: “While transatlantic demand is weakening, we expect the European part of that to shift to other markets, and remain confident about the summer season.
“The big question is what happens as of next winter given the unprecedented macro‑economic uncertainty we are now facing as a result of the Trump administration’s attack on the global multilateral trading system.
“This means that in addition to geopolitics and the current supply pressures coming from aircraft delivery and maintenance delays, as well as infrastructure capacity constraints, and airlines focusing on yields rather than capacity expansion, we could see downward demand pressures becoming a reality.”
