European airport trade body, ACI Europe this morning released the first comprehensive report of airport traffic performance for the first half of 2013.

The report includes all scheduled air traffic at Europe’s airports, including networks carriers, low cost carriers, charter and others.

The overall passenger traffic at the continent’s airports registered an increase of up 1.8 per cent during the first six months of the year, compared with the same period in 2012.

At EU airports passenger traffic decreased by 0.2 per cent while non-EU airports led by Turkey, Russia, Iceland and Norway reported dynamic growth of 9.8 per cent.

Overall freight traffic among European airports still remained negative at -0.9 per cent, while aircraft movements (an indicator of airline capacity) at European airports also decreased by 2.9 per cent.

Olivier Jankovec, director general, ACI EUROPE commented: “Behind a rather contrasted performance for the first half of the year, passenger traffic is finally improving for EU airports.