Airport profile: Lithuania’s Airport System & Delhi Indira Gandhi
Special report: Global Conflicts
Plus: Sustainability; Enhancing Airport Lounges & Transformative Airport Design
The heat is on!
Editor, Joe Bates, reflects on rising global passenger numbers, geopolitics and the ‘safety and security’ theme of this issue.
As normal at this time of the year, rising temperatures, new routes and more crowded airport terminals signify the start of the summer schedules in the Northern Hemisphere and, traditionally, some of the busiest few months ahead for passenger traffic.
At the time of writing (May 22), an ever-increasing number of airports are reporting impressive traffic growth for Q1, with most European gateways expecting demand to peak, as usual, during the summer months and continue in an upward trajectory for the rest of the year.
ACI EUROPE’s most recent traffic figures revealed that passenger volumes across the continent maintained a positive momentum during the first quarter of 2025, with numbers increasing by +4.3% over the same period last year.
It says the Q1 growth in traffic was entirely driven by international passengers (+5.7%) as domestic traffic remained flat (0%) when compared to the same period in 2024. The figure for international travellers represents an 8.9% increase on pre-pandemic Q1 in 2019.
It wasn’t all good news, though, as ACI EUROPE’s director general, Olivier Jankovec noted that the Q1 data revealed that the post‑pandemic travel boom is fading and that Europe was moving towards “normalised” growth rates in passenger volumes.
He also cautioned that geopolitics and macro‑economic uncertainty remain key challenges to future growth.
The war in Ukraine, of course, continues to cast a shadow over Europe and indeed the world, and the recent outbreak of fighting between India and Pakistan has only served to raise tensions in that region.
Global aviation consultant with ICAO and former CEO of Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, Inderjit Singh, provides his thoughts on how global conflicts such as these disrupt air travel in an exclusive feature on pages 28-30 of this issue.
On a more positive note, rising passenger numbers – ACI World expects global traffic to more than double to 22.3 billion passengers per annum by 2053 – means that the aviation industry will have to up its game in terms of facilities and performance levels over the coming decades in order to meet demand.
And the industry will have to do this while never losing sight of the key priorities of safety, security and sustainability.
As ‘safety and security’ is the theme of this issue, it should come as no surprise to learn that we cover a number of different safety and security stories on the following pages.
They include a review of pioneering airfield safety initiatives at Costa Rica’s Juan Santamaria Airport (SJO), Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) in the US, and Leeds Bradford (LBA) in the UK; taking a closer look at the benefits of intelligent video technology; consider the installation of more operationally friendly airport safety barriers; and report on the latest airport security news.
Our lead airport feature shines the spotlight on Lithuania, with Lithuanian Airports CEO, Simonas Bartkus, telling us more about the ongoing transformation of Vilnius Airport and the development plans for Kaunas and Palanga.
We also have a comprehensive report on the current growth trajectory of Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, India’s busiest and best-connected gateway.
Elsewhere in this issue, we have articles about transformative airport design at Houston George Bush and Austin-Bergstrom airports in Texas; enhancing existing airport lounges; and highlight a number of pioneering new sustainability initiatives across Europe and North America.
We round the issue out with our regular ‘people matters’ column and the latest SMART Airports and airport supplier news in our new ‘business exchange’ section.
I hope you enjoy the issue and look forward to catching up with many of you at the upcoming SMART Airports & Regions Conference and Exhibition in Atlanta in July.
