New statistics reveal recent aviation trends, including a rise in air freight and non-scheduled flights.
According to statistics published in EU News, pulled from the European Statistical Institute the number of cargo flights has been continuously on the rise since 2021 and returned to “a level similar to the pre-pandemic” by 2025. In 2019, before the lockdown and travel restrictions, there were around seven million commercial flights.
In 2025, 6.9 million commercial flights were recorded in the European Union (EU), representing a 3.8% increase compared with the 6.7 million in 2024, according to data released by Eurostat on Friday 28 August.
The summer months of 2025 – June (648,707 total flights), July (690,855 flights), and August (693,046 flights) – recorded the highest number of non-scheduled flights, with a rise of 11.2%, 12.3%, and 11.4% respectively.
Regarding European airports, the highest number of commercial flights in 2025 was recorded at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands, with 488,000 departures and arrivals, followed by Paris-Charles de Gaulle in France with 476,000, and Frankfurt am Main in Germany with 457,000. With the UK no longer a part of the EU, British airports are not included in the official ranking, however London Heathrow would have come in third place with around 475,000 flights.