Istanbul Atatürk, Sabiha Gökçen among Europe's top airports: Association

According to statistics released by the Airports Council International Europe (ACI Europe), Istanbul's Atatürk has become the third busiest airport of Europe in 2015 with a 9.1 percent increase of passengers, bringing its total to nearly 62 million visitors. The statistics have also showed that amongst top European airports with the capacity of 10-25 million passengers, Istanbul's Sabiha Gökçen International Airport (SAW) recorded the fastest growth in passenger numbers, with a 19.7 percent of growth. 

A European airport trade association, ACI Europe released its traffic report for 2015 on Feb. 5. Its report is the only air transport report that includes all types of civil aviation passenger flights to and from Europe: full service, low cost, charter and others. 

Passenger traffic across the European airport network in 2015 grew by an average of 5.2 percent, according to the report. At EU airports, the average increase in passenger traffic was 5.6 percent, with airports in Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and Lithuania achieving double-digit growth. Meanwhile, non-EU airports reported diminished growth of 3.9 percent mainly due to a significant decline in demand for air travel through Russian and Ukrainian airports, as well as almost flat growth in Norway, despite a stellar increase in passenger traffic in Iceland and sustained growth at most Turkish airports, said the report.

"2015 has been a very good year in terms of passenger traffic, with European airports welcoming an estimated 1.95 billion passengers. Some 20 percent of them achieved a double-digit increase and many broke new traffic records - mostly fueled by the continued growth of low cost airlines and selected non-EU airlines. EU airports generally...