Brussels, 22/01/2007 (Agence Europe) - According to information published by Eurostat on Friday 19 January, compared with the previous year, the total number of passengers transported by air in the EU25 rose by 8.5% in 2005 to more than 700 million. Passenger numbers rose by 8.8% in 2004 and by 4.9% in 2003. 23% of the 700 passengers were carried on national internal flights, 42% on intra-EU25 flights and 35% on flights outside the EU25. London Heathrow remained the EU's busiest airport with 68 million passengers in 2005 (up 1% on 2004). Paris Charles de Gaulle (53 million passengers, up 5%) and Frankfurt (52 million passengers, up 2%) were the second and third busiest airports, followed by Amsterdam Schipol (44 million, up 4%) and Madrid Barajas (42 million, up 9%).
Eurostat figures show that passenger numbers rose in all Member States, with the exception of Malta, where there was a fall of 1.2% to 2.7 million passengers. Five member States recorded growth of 25% or more: Latvia (77%), Slovakia (46%), Lithuania (44%), Estonia (41%) and Hungary (25%). The largest numbers of passengers were recorded in the United Kingdom (204 million, up 6% on 2004), Germany (146 million, up 8%), Spain (144 million, up 11%), France (108 million, up 5%) and Italy (88 million, up 8%).
In 2005, air freight in the EU25 rose by 3.5% compared with 2004, to almost 11 million tonnes, 80% of which was with non-EU25 countries. The bulk of this was with North America (30% of freight traffic with non-EU25 countries), and the Far East (up 7% to 28% of this traffic). German and British airports handled around half of all EU25 air freight. Frankfurt (2 million tonnes, an increase of 7% on 2004) was the leading airport for air freight, flowed by Amsterdam Schipol (1.5 million tonnes, up 2%), London Heathrow (1.4 million tonnes, down 2%) and Paris Charles de Gaulle (1.2 million tonnes, down 5%). Together, these four airports accounted for 55% of all EU25 air freight. Brussels National, Cologne-Bonn and Luxemburg airports together accounted for 18% of air freight. (lc)