European aviation to recover to pre-Covid levels in 2024

European aviation physique Eurocontrol is forecasting air visitors throughout the continent to achieve 9.5 million flights this yr, which might be 85 per cent of 2019 ranges.

This can be a slight downgrade on Eurocontrol’s earlier forecast of 2022 flights reaching 89 per cent of pre-Covid numbers. This drop was because of the influence of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 on air journey in the course of the early months of this yr.

Eurocontrol doesn’t anticipate European flights to return to 2019 ranges till 2024, with the variety of flights set to achieve 10.6 million in 2023, which might nonetheless be 5 per cent decrease than in 2019.

Though full restoration for the aviation sector might be additional delayed till 2027 because of attainable “draw back dangers”, such because the unfold of recent Covid variants and the financial influence of excessive inflation on passenger demand.

Eurocontrol highlights “broad variation” in restoration charges throughout Europe with some international locations within the south of the continent already anticipated to achieve 2019 flight ranges earlier than the tip of 2022.

“The invasion of Ukraine is having a restricted influence at European degree however the re-routings to keep away from closed airspaces are affecting the variety of overflights in numerous international locations,” added Eurocontrol.