The statistical office of the European Union (EU), Eurostat, has released figures on the number of commercial flights in the EU in 2025, as well as the number of overnight stays in tourist accommodations in the first half of 2026, compared to the same period last year.
Commercial flights up
In 2025, 6.9 million commercial flights were recorded in the EU, which according to the Eurostat report is an increase of 3.8 percent when compared with 6.7 million flights in 2024. In 2019, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, 7.0 million commercial flights were recorded and the figure has been steadily rising to similar levels since global aviation recovery began in 2021.
The summer months of June, July and August inevitably recorded the highest number of total flights, as well as non-scheduled commercial flights (charter and other special flights). Non-scheduled flights in the last year constituted 8.5 percent of all EU commercial flights.
Busiest airports
Amsterdam Schiphol airport (AMS) recorded the highest number of flights in 2025 with getting close to half a million flights in 2025 (488,000). Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport (CDG) recorded 476,000 flights, closely followed by 457,000 flights recorded at Frankfurt/Main airport (FRA).
By comparison, the UK Civil Aviation Authority’s (CAA) figures show London Heathrow airport (LHR) had a total of 479,996 aircraft movements in 2025. LHR saw a slight increase on 2024 figures, when it had recorded 476,119 aircraft movements. Interestingly, London Gatwick airport (LGW) recorded 263,113 aircraft movements in 2025 but this was slightly less than in 2024, when it had recorded 265,358 aircraft movements. However, the overall finding for 2025 was an increase in commercial flights from the UK, as in Feb. 2026, the CAA reported that it was the busiest year ever for UK aviation with a total of 302 million passenger journeys.
Overnight stays up
Separately, Eurostat also highlighted that overnight stays in tourist accommodation were up 1.7 percent in the first six months of 2026, compared with the same period in 2025. This constituted 1,321 million overnight stays (compared to the previous year figures of 1,299 million).
The countries with the highest increases in share of EU overnight stays were Ireland which was up 14.6 percent, Malta with 9.9 percent and Slovakia with 5.9 percent. Cyprus recorded the largest fall in overnight stays with a decline of 7.7 percent, followed by Romania with -6.7 percent.
Eurostat also broke down these overnight stay figures into percentages of foreign (defined as non-residents of the country, both from the EU and non-EU) and domestic visitors. The countries with the biggest share of foreign overnight stays for the first half of 2026 were Malta (95.2 percent), Cyprus (92.6 percent) and Luxembourg (87.7 percent). However, in Germany, Poland and Romania, foreign guests accounted for just 18.5 percent, 19.8 percent and 23 percent of their total overnight stays.
All the 2025 and early 2026 figures point to a tangible increase in both EU and UK aviation travel and tourism. Eurostat revealed an overall 2.5 percent increase in the rise of nights spent in the EU by foreign visitors in the first half of 2026 (compared to the same period last year). This is nearly three times the growth of nights spent by domestic visitors (up 0.9 percent). This highlights that in general, more travellers are choosing to stay overnight in countries other than their own, further evidenced by the reported steady increase in commercial flights in the EU and UK.
Have you travelled to the EU more this year than in 2025? Let us know in the comments below.
