Almost seven million passengers passed through Cyprus’ two airports in 2005, an increase of 5.6 per cent.

Thirty-nine thousand tonnes of freight also passed through Larnaca and Paphos, a growth of 5.5 per cent on 2004.

Larnaca did not even make it onto the list of Europe’s top-20 busiest airports. Dusseldorf, in 20th place, has passenger air transport numbers approaching 15.5 million.

According to Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, the total number of passengers transported by air in the EU25 rose by 8.5 per cent, to more than 700 million in 2005.

Passenger numbers rose by 8.8 per cent in 2004 and by 4.9 per cent in 2003. Of these passengers, 23 per cent were carried on national flights, 42 per cent on intra-EU25 flights and 35 per cent on extra-EU25 flights.

London Heathrow remained the EU’s busiest airport in terms of passengers, handling 68 million in 2005 – nearly 10 per cent of all air passengers in the EU25 – and up one per cent compared to 2004.

Paris Charles de Gaulle (53 million passengers, plus five per cent) and Frankfurt am Main (52 million, plus two) were the second and third busiest airports, followed by Amsterdam Schipol (44 million) and Madrid Barajas (42 million).

Passenger numbers rose in almost all Member States in 2005 compared to 2004. Five Member States recorded growth of 25 per cent or more, the highest being Latvia (plus 77 per cent), followed by Slovakia (plus 46 per cent), Lithuania (plus 44 per cent), Estonia (plus 41 per cent) and Hungary (plus 25 per cent).

The highest numbers of passengers were registered in the United Kingdom (204 million), Germany (146 million), Spain (144 million,), France (108 million) and Italy (88 million).

Air freight in the EU25 rose by 3.5 per cent compared to 2004, to almost 11 million tonnes, 80 per cent of which was with non-EU25 countries. The main partners were North America, representing 30 per cent of freight traffic with non-EU25 countries, the Far East (28 per cent) and the Middle East (14 per cent).

German and British airports handled around half of all EU25’s air freight.
Frankfurt am Main (two million tonnes) was in 2005 the EU’s leading airport for air freight, followed by Amsterdam Schipol (1.5 million), London Heathrow (1.4 million) and Paris Charles de Gaulle (1.2 million). Together, they handled 55 per cent of all EU25 air freight.