Air connectivity in Europe grew by only 1% in 2025, the International Air Transport Association reported this week.
Across the European Union, 1,281 routes were added last year while 1,127 were canceled, a net gain of 154 connections. At year’s end, the continent’s route network totaled 14,797.
The small increase is below the compound annual growth rate of 1.5% over the last decade, officials said.
“That the European Union (EU)’s air connectivity virtually flatlined in 2025 is no surprise,” Thomas Reynaert, IATA’s senior vice president of external relations, said in a news release. “The regulatory burden is onerous, costs are high, and the EU’s well-documented underlying competitiveness issues have not been seriously addressed.”
Reynaert specifically called out the EU’s consumer protection regulations, which include compensation for passengers whose flights are canceled or delayed for over two hours. The penalties make many marginal routes uneconomical for carriers, he said.
“The flaws of the current regulation have been known but attempts to correct them appear to be doomed to just make them worse,” Reynaert continued. “These are the kind of frustrations that make it more difficult for airlines to grow the connectivity that Europe relies on to power jobs and economic growth.”
As a representative of the world’s airlines, IATA almost always favors deregulation, and on Thursday it encouraged European lawmakers to roll back measures that it said are hurting competition and growth.
The organization said regulators should increase time thresholds for passenger compensation; introduce a book-and-claim process for the purchase of sustainable aviation fuel; allow more flexibility for airport slot relief in periods of crisis; and eliminate national passenger taxes, following the example of Sweden.
The report covers only 2025 and does not factor in recent route cancellations stemming from the surge in jet fuel prices.
