London Heathrow held its status as Europe's busiest aviation hub last year, but Istanbul Airport closed the gap and is likely to surpass it soon, according to a European industry group.
With 84.48 million passengers, Heathrow had a 0.7% increase in traffic last year, ACI Europe reported on Thursday, citing the use of larger planes by airlines at "the capacity-constrained British hub."
British authorities say a third runway will be added at Heathrow, but it is not expected to be ready before 2035.
Istanbul Airport, where traffic has surged since its inauguration in 2018, saw passenger growth of 5.5% to 84.44 million – just 40,000 behind Heathrow.
"Over the past 5 years, passenger traffic at the Turkish hub has expanded by almost a quarter," ACI Europe said.
Türkiye has benefited as a gateway between Europe and Asian destinations as well as being a hub for flights between Russia, subject to Western sanctions over its war in Ukraine, and the rest of the world.
Rounding out the top five European airports were Paris-Charles de Gaulle (72 million), Amsterdam-Schiphol (68.8 million) and Madrid (68.1 million).
Türkiye's second-largest airport, Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen, was also commended by the ACI Europe.
Sabiha Gökçen's performance "is worth noting as its passenger traffic increased by an impressive +16.7% last year to 48.41 million passengers," the group said.
Sabiha Gökçen and Istanbul Airport were the hubs that reported the best performance in passenger traffic for 2025, according to ACI Europe.
Barcelona BCN and Munich MUC both with a growth of 4.4% and Rome FCO with an increase of 4.3% rounded up the top five.
ACI Europe said non-EU airports outperformed the European average, with their passenger volumes expanding by 6.2% compared to 4% at airports within the EU+ market, which includes the European Union, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and European Economic Area (EEA) countries.
Overall, passenger traffic across Europe climbed 4.4% last year to record 2.6 billion people, "entirely driven by international traffic," the group said.
Those figures marked a return to "normalized" growth patterns after the bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic, it noted.
They confirm resilience amidst generally lacklustre European economies, inflated airfares, significant supply and capacity pressures, as well as ever-volatile and tense geopolitics, it noted.
"Travel remains among consumers' top discretionary spending priorities – even as geopolitics and geoeconomics are likely to further test the sector's resilience," ACI Europe's Director-General Olivier Jankovec said in a statement.
The sector continues to benefit as well from the post-COVID pandemic travel restrictions, and traffic growth is expected to "normalize" at around 3.3% this year, Jankovec said.
The ACI Europe also said freight traffic across the European airport network increased by 3.2% in 2025 over the previous year. Most of the growth came from EU+ airports (3.6% increase) compared to non‑EU+ airports (0.4 growth).
Frankfurt, with 1.99 million tons, a 2% year-over-year growth, replaced Istanbul, where traffic declined by 0.6% to 1.97 million tons, as the busiest European airport for freight.
The Turkish hub was followed by Paris‑CDG with 1.92 million tons (2.3% increase), London‑Heathrow with 1.55 million tons (0.8% rise) and Amsterdam‑Schiphol with 1.43 million tons (decline of 4.2%).
