Geography of the Passenger Turnover Dynamics at Airports in Europe and Russia’s Regions in the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Due to restrictions on people’s movement as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the air passenger traffic sharply decreased in 2020. A geographic study of this phenomenon is highly relevant. The article describes the features of the spread of the pandemic across Europe from a transport–geographical viewpoint; reveals differences in the negative passenger turnover dynamics at large and medium-sized airports in 49 European countries (including Russia) impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic during the first year. The changes were measured absolutely and relatively, which made it possible to identify the types of their dynamics: catastrophic, strong, medium, moderate, weak, and insignificant declines. Geographically, the spread of COVID-19 was extremely uneven: at first, the epidemic covered large countries of Europe (Northern Italy became the main center after Wuhan), then closely related neighboring and more distant countries were involved; last but not least, the Balkan countries and countries in post-Soviet Eastern Europe. The disease spread hierarchically. The first cases arrived by air, first from the main centers, whence coronavirus infection was then transmitted to other countries by new groups of air passengers. Then, the infection was transmitted by ground transport passengers within the zones of influence of the largest airports. The airports of European countries are characterized by a strong decline in passenger turnover (65–85%); Russian regions, by moderate (30–45%) and weak (15–30%) declines. The retrodegression time lag (return to the values of the distant past) turned out to be the largest (27–40 years) for the largest European airports with a large share of international passengers and transit, relatively medium (16–26 years)—for medium-sized or large airports with a large share of domestic transportation, relatively short (9–16 years)—for the largest airports in Russia with a high proportion of international passengers, short (4–8 years)—for almost all other airports in Russia, very short (2–3 years)—for resort and tourist airports in Russia and some airports with an increased share of domestic passengers. Since different airports had different dynamics of passenger turnover, the ranks of their hierarchy in 2020 changed somewhat: before, the largest airports gave way to others, which bypassed the first ones due to a smaller level of recession and rapid recovery in the volume of domestic air traffic.