Europe’s Airports Council International (ACI EUROPE) called an emergency the future of regional air connectivity, pointing out that the latter has faced a loss of 1.72 billion passengers all over Europe since the start of the pandemic.

Through a press release, ACI Europe has announced that of the total passenger losses, regional airports marked over 836 million losses, whereas smaller airports recorded 437 million losses, StudyinPoland.info reports.

The majority of 193 European regional airports are dealing with over-indebtedness. They have been facing exterminated connectivity in addition to passenger traffic, especially those airports that mostly rely on international air connectivity, the Council says.

It also points out that the Cork Airport in Ireland revealed that from having more than 50 routes multiple times a week in 2020, they currently operate with one route functioning three times per week.

In total, approximately 7000 air routes are not actively functioning in the European airport network.

In a previous article by AtoZSerwisPlus.pl, it was highlighted that European Union, European Economic Area, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom airports faced a decrease of 89 percent in passenger traffic in 2021, compared to 2020 data. Only by February 14, 182 million passengers were lost as a consequence of governments’ COVID-19 preventative measures.

Commenting on the issue, the Chairman of ACI EUROPE’s Regional Airports Forum and Managing Director of Cork Airport, Niall MacCarthy, said that the road network reconstruction would take some years and the speed of it will determine how fast the local economies and jobs in communities will recover.

“With every +10 percent gain in direct air connectivity yielding a 0.5 percent increase in GDP, the case for the EU to accelerate greater policy and financial support for airports and air connectivity is an economic no-brainer,” MacCarthy said.

He also emphasized the importance of allowing Air Connectivity Restart Schemes along with other actions that need to be adopted.

Based on ACI’s report, regional airports will deal with even more obstacles in making progress, even after recovery. Thus, regulations are bound to support and adapt to air connectivity.

“We will need a review of policy and regulations across the board to better support regional air connectivity – structurally,” said the Director-General of ACI Europe, Olivier Jankovec.

By doing this, ACI Europe reassured that helping airports to move forward on sustainable development and reach net-zero commission by 2050 is crucial. About 100 regional airports in Europe are actively engaged to minimize the carbon footprint, and 25 of them are carbon neutral by now.

For all the action to not be at risk by the COVID-19 crisis, ACI Europe insists that continued support will be needed.

Observing that regional airports assist to employ 1.9 million people and help the GDP by €84.5 billion, Jakovec established that Europe needs to support regional airports, as they are the primary sources of income, providing health and educational services apart from empowering economic development, creating jobs and retaining the population.