Istanbul Airport saw the most passenger traffic in all of Europe in June, welcoming just shy of 6 million passengers, according to data released by a European airport trade association on Wednesday.
Passenger traffic was marginally down from its pre-pandemic level (1.7%) but was more than double – up 115.4% – from last year's, data from the Airports Council International (ACI) Europe showed.
According to the data, 5.996 million passengers went through Istanbul Airport in June 2022, making it first in Europe.
Antalya Airport in the Turkish Mediterranean resort city was the eighth-busiest European airport last month with 3.91 million passengers, making it the second Turkish airport in the top 10 busiest.
London's Heathrow Airport came second with 5.991 million passengers. The British hub saw a 526% annual rise in its traffic but was down 17.3% compared to 2019.
It was followed by Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport with 5.45 million passengers this June and Amsterdam's Schiphol with 5.23 million.
In the first half of this year, total passenger traffic in the European airport network jumped 247% year-over-year or 660 million, data showed.
"The fact that volumes across the continent still remained 28.3% below pre-pandemic levels for the first half of the year should not eclipse the sheer and unprecedented unleashing of pent-up demand that has occurred since March," said Olivier Jankovec, ACI Europe's director general.
