37 Airport classification
37.1 EUROCONTROL recommended values
This input represents the number of airports per bracket of annual IFR movements1.
The list of airports used for this classification was developed using a two-step procedure:
Step 1: the initial airport list provided by EUROCONTROL Performance Review Unit (PRU) was restricted to airports located in ECAC Member States and having both ICAO and IATA codes, in order to focus on airports providing commercial air transport services. Additional airports located in ECAC Member States were included in the airport list in order to scope all airports for which the EUROCONTROL PRU provided operational data.
Step 2: the data obtained in step 1 was sorted into brackets according to the number of annual IFR movements, based on which the airports were allocated to categories, ranging from Small to Very large.
Please note that, within the category “Other”, on top of the 873 airports presented in fig-airport-classification, there are also 36 airports with no movements recorded in 2022.
Statistics on individual airport movements and operations at airports can be downloaded from Aviation Intelligence Unit Dashboard.
37.2 Other possible sources
Information on airports that have implemented a collaborative decision-making (A-CDM) can be found via this link.
Airport CDM aims to improve the overall efficiency of airport operations by optimising the use of resources and improving the predictability of events. It focuses especially on aircraft turnaround and pre-departure sequencing processes.
The A-CDM concept has been globally recognised. A-CDM is fully implemented in 32 airports across Europe (status: December 2020), including Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bergamo, Berlin Brandenburg “Willy Brandt”, Brussels, Copenhagen, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hamburg, Helsinki, Lisbon, London Gatwick, London Heathrow, Lyon, Madrid, Milan Malpensa, Milan Linate, Munich, Naples, Nice, Paris CDG, Paris Orly, Oslo, Palma de Mallorca, Prague, Rome Fiumicino, Stockholm Arlanda, Stuttgart, Venice, Warsaw, and Zurich.
More details for a selected airport are available in EUROCONTROL Public Airport Corner.[1]
37.3 Comment
The mapping of airports to categories in the recommended value is purely indicative and is based on the situation in 2022. The local situation of many airports may not be known or be interpreted differently. Final applicability of the assigning of airports to categories needs to be checked and confirmed by the appropriate airport or authority.
37.5 References
A movement is either a take-off or a landing at an airport↩︎