Judging by the newest air traffic data update from Eurocontrol, an Irish ultra-low-cost carrier Ryanair became the busiest airline in Europe in terms of the number of flights conducted per week between July 16 and July 22, 2021. The airline took a leading position and beat its competitors, such as EasyJet, WizzAir, Vueling, and Eurowings by making a total of 2,019 flights.
Despite that the low-cost airline has done more than 2,000 operations, Ryanair still faced around a 22% decline in passenger traffic in comparison to the same week before the pandemic, in 2019.
Meanwhile, the second-busiest airline operator in Europe was Turkish Airlines with 1,215 flights made per week. Even though the national flag carrier of Turkey has served 6% more flights between July 16-22, 2021, it still flew around 17% less than in the same period in 2019.
Similar to Turkish Airlines, another airline serving European passengers, Air France, conducted 1% more flights than over the past two weeks in July 2021, but the total amount of flights dropped by 34% in comparison to pre-COVID levels. The Eurocontrol data indicates that the flag carrier of France made 811 operations in the third week of July 2021.
A British low-cost carrier EasyJet took fourth place in the Eurocontrol rating table, having done 807 flights, which was 56% less than in 2019. The rest of European carriers, such as Lufthansa (LHAB) (LHA), Air France KLM (AFRAF), and WizzAir, which took off for 734, 706, and 613 flights respectively, have shown small or no signs of recovery.
While Pegasus, Vueling, and SAS also made it to the 10 busiest European airline operators list, none of the airlines have shown a huge increase of flight numbers. Although a Turkish low-cost carrier Pegasus faced a 2% increase in the demand for flights compared to pre-pandemic, it operated only 518 flights.
Meanwhile, a Spanish low-cost airline Vueling flew even less. The Barcelona-based air carrier operated 417 flights only and suffered a 35% decrease in air traffic compared to the same period in 2019.
Scandinavian Airlines operated less than 400 flights and recorded a 52% lower demand for their services in comparison to pre-pandemic.