Europe's Aviation Market

Monthly Airline Data Updates for the European Market

Discover the Busiest Airports and Airlines in Europe This Month | May 2025

How much airline capacity is there in Europe? Find out with new data each month, detailing:

  • Which is the busiest airport?
  • What is the biggest airline in Europe?
  • Which European country has the most airline capacity?
  • Which regions are most visited?
  • And more.
Data is sourced from OAG's Schedules Analyser; a cutting-edge platform for airline schedule analysis. 

 

Airline Capacity in Europe | May 2025

 

How much airline capacity is there in Europe This Month?

  • Overall capacity in  European market  grew by 3.6% vs May 24 to 127.1m.
  • International capacity, which grew by 4.9%, whilst domestic capacity reduced by 1.4% vs May 24.
  • LCC capacity grew by 4.7% vs last year whilst Mainline carriers' capacity grew by 2.7%, now representing 55% of the market.

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European Countries' Airline Capacity | May 2025

 

Which European Country Has The Most Airline Capacity (Domestic + International)?

  • Spain and the UK are the largest capacity markets, with 16.8m and 16.6m seats respectively.  Capacity in Spain has increased by 3.8% vs May 24, whilst capacity in the UK increased by 2%.
  • Percentage wise capacity grew most in Portugal, growing by 6% (226,000 more seats) vs the previous year to 3.9m seats.  However, Spain added the greatest volume of seats, an additional 620,600 seats.

Which European Country Has THE Most DOMESTIC Airline Capacity?

 

  • Spain and Türkiye are the largest domestic markets, with 5.1m and 4.8m seats respectively, despite a 1% reduction in domestic capacity in Spain vs last year.
  • Percentage wise capacity reduced most within the Top 10 countries in Sweden and the UK, declining by 12.6% and 10.4% respectively.  This represents 80,200 fewer seats and 245,900 fewer seats respectively vs May 24.

Top Ten Busiest Airports by Departing Seats in Europe | May 2025

 

Which is the Busiest Airport in Europe?

  • Heathrow is the busiest airport in Europe with 4.5m seats, only 174,725 more seats than Istanbul with 4.3m seats.
  • Strongest growth again this month in the Top 10 airports comes from Istanbul Sabhia Gokcen Airport (SAW) where carriers have increased capacity by 12.4% year on year. 
  • The German airports, Munich International and Frankfurt International grew by 5.7% and 5.6% vs May 24.

  • Busiest Airports in the World - data on the busiest global airports | View Now

Airline Capacity By European Region | May 2025

Which Region of Europe Has Most AIRLINE Capacity?

  • 90% of capacity is from or within Western Europe, growing by 2.8% vs last year to 114.6m seats.
  • Capacity in Eastern/Central Europe grew at a faster rate of 11.5%, to 12.5m seats.

Where do flights from Europe go?

  • The international seat capacity grew by 4.9% to 101.9m seats.
  • Within Europe, it increased by 4.2% to 82.5m seats, adding 3.4m seats and making up 81% share of the market.
  • Travel to/from the Middle East grew at the fastest rate by 12.6% vs last year to 4.7m seats, followed by the Asia Pacific market which grew by 10.2% to 3.2m seats.
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Top Ten Airlines in Europe (Departing seats, one-way) | May 2025

 

Which is the biggest airline in Europe?

  • Ryanair is the largest carrier within Europe, with 20.1m seats, an increase of 3.5% vs last year.  The carrier is operating 10.5m more seats than easyJet, the second largest carrier.
  • Turkish based LCC, Pegasus continued to record the strongest growth amongst the Top 10 European airlines this month, with a year on year increase of 15.6%.  Followed by the Wizz Air group, with an increase in capacity of 12.4% seats.

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