The question was the focus of the annual congress of the Airports Council International Europe in Rome this week, held at the cusp of the approaching peak season.
Across the continent, air traffic was last week at 86 percent of the same period in 2019, Eurocontrol said, and expected to reach up to 95 percent in August under its most optimistic estimate. The director-general for transport and mobility at the European Commission, Henrik Hololei, echoed that thought.
Fuel accounts for about a quarter of the operating costs of airlines, which have passed them on to consumers in ticket prices as they seek to refill coffers drained by the two-year health crisis. The general manager of Athens International Airport, Yiannis Paraschis, similarly expressed fears that"the increase in energy costs and inflation will consume a great part of European households' disposable income".