Europe's Aviation Market

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

Here's a quick overview of the top statistics from the European aviation market:

• Busiest airport: London Heathrow
• Top airline: Ryanair
• Country with most international airline capacity: Spain and the UK
• Most visited world region from Europe (exc Europe): Middle East
  

How much airline capacity is there in Europe This Month?

• Overall airline capacity in the European market grew to 122.5m in January 2026, a 4.4% increase year-on-year.
• International capacity grew by 5.9%, whilst domestic capacity contracted by 0.8% compared with January 2025.
• Low-cost carrier capacity increased by 4.0% year-on-year, while mainline carriers grew by 4.6% and now account for 65% of total market capacity.
  

*As of July 2025, international capacity is reported on a two-way basis (previously one-way departing).

Which is the Busiest Airport in Europe?

• Istanbul is the busiest airport in Europe in January 2026 with 4.3m seats, an increase of 7% vs last year.
• A close second, London Heathrow, grew by only 0.4% to 4.2m seats.
• Strongest percentage growth in the Top 10 comes again from Istanbul's Sabiha Gokcen, where carriers have increased capacity by 13.4% year on year.
  
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Which is the biggest airline in Europe?

• Ryanair is Europe’s largest airline in January 2026, with 13.4 million seats, up 2.1% year-on-year. It is operating 7.3 million more seats than Wizz Air, the second-largest carrier.
• Wizz Air overtook easyJet as the second busiest carrier with 6.1m seats, adding 751k seats vs last year.
• SAS Scandinavian recorded the largest percentage increase in capacity, up 19.2% year-on-year to 2.8 million seats. This was followed by Wizz Air and Turkish low-cost carrier Pegasus, with increases of 14.1% and 11.1% respectively.