The overall passenger traffic at European airports remained flat with an increase of just 0.1% in Aug-08 compared with Aug-07. This is a minor improvement on July’s slightly negative figure (-0.4%). The overall freight traffic among European airports confirmed its negative trend for the fourth month in a row, falling by -3.5% in Aug-08 when compared with the corresponding month in 2007.
 
The overall figure for movements at European airports also decreased by -1.2% in Aug-08 when compared with Aug-07.
 
Passenger figures for Aug-08 indicate that Group 4 airports (airports welcoming less than 5 million passengers per year) had the largest increase in traffic - with an average increase of  +1.9% when compared with August 2007 - and an average increase of +12.9% when compared with August 2006.
 
Airports welcoming more than 25 million passengers per year (Group 1), airports welcoming between 10 and 25 million passengers (Group 2) and airports welcoming between 5 and 10 million passengers (Group 3) reported an average increase / decrease of -0.7%,  -0.1% and +1.3% respectively when compared with Aug-07. The same comparison of Aug-08 with Aug-06 demonstrates an average increase of +7.1%, +8.4% and +8.3% respectively.
 
Examples of airports that experienced the highest increase in passenger traffic per group, when comparing Aug-08 with Aug-07, include:
- Group 1 airports – Rome Fiumicino (+12.5%), Paris Charles de Gaulle (1.9%) and Paris Orly (1.0%);
- Group 2 airports – Moscow-Domodedovo (+9.0%), Geneva (+7.5%), Zurich (+7.4%) and Prague (+4.8%);
- Group 3 airports – Lyon (+14.8%), St Petersburg (+12.2%), Milan/Orio al Serio (+12.1%) and Moscow Vnukovo (+10.3%);
- Group 4 airports – Liege (+42.1%), Vilnius (+24.7%), Sofia (+22.2%) and Riga (+19.5%).