The EU statistics authority, Eurostat, reports that 918.3 million passengers travelled by air in the European Union in 2015, 4.7% more than in 2014 and 22.0% more than 2009.

Intra-EU transport represented 45.2% of the total, followed by extra-EU transport (37.2%), while national transport accounted for fewer than 1 in every 5 passengers (17.6%).

On the EU territory in 2015, 155 people lost their lives in commercial air transport accidents with EU aircraft, including 150 persons killed in the tragedy of Germanwings flight 9525. Since 2009, 211 persons have been killed.

In 2015, one in four air passengers was recorded in the UK, which saw 232 million passengers. It was followed by Germany (194m passengers), Spain (175m), France (141m) and Italy (128m).

The number of air passengers carried in 2015 rose in all EU Member States compared with 2014. The largest increases were registered in Slovakia (+16.3%) and Romania (+15.3%), followed by Hungary (+13.0%), Poland (+12.4%) and Ireland (+12.3%). The lowest increases were observed in Bulgaria (+1.2%), Austria (+1.4%) and Finland (+1.8%). Overall in the EU, the number of air passengers rose by 4.7% between 2014 and 2015, notably driven by the rise in intra-EU transport (+7.3%).

London/Heathrow remained the EU’s busiest passenger airport in 2015, with 75m passengers handled, slightly up (+2.2%) compared with 2014. Paris/Charles de Gaulle (65.7m, +3.2%), Frankfurt/Main (60.9m, +2.5%) and Amsterdam/Schiphol (58.2m, +5.8%) were the second, third and fourth busiest airports.

Each of the top 30 airports registered an increase in the number of passengers handled in 2015, except Milano/Malpensa (-1.2%). The highest rises among the top 30 airports were registered in Athens (+19.1%) and London/Luton (+17.0%), ahead of Dublin (+14.9%), London/Stansted (+12.9%), Madrid/Barajas (+11.4%) and Lisbon (+10.8%).

As in 2014, London/Heathrow (44.0m) handled the most passengers on extra-EU transport in 2015, Amsterdam/Schiphol (33.4m) the most on intra-EU transport and Paris/Orly (14.0m) the most on national transport.