A total of 5.9 million passengers passed through London Heathrow in December, representing 88% of the level achieved in 2019 as the UK airport continues its recovery from the pandemic. The figure is an increase of 90% against the same month in 2021 and compares with the 6.7 million passengers that used Heathrow in December 2019. Transatlantic travel was the key driver behind last month's high passenger volumes, with the route to New York JFK serving as the airport's busiest. In total, Heathrow welcomed 61.6 million passengers during 2022, or 76% of 2019 levels. That is 42.2 million higher than in 2021. The year "ended on a high with our busiest Christmas in three years and a smooth and efficient service for passengers, thanks to the hard work of our colleagues and close planning with airlines, their ground handlers and Border Force", states chief executive John Holland-Kaye.

Airbus is confident about widebody sales prospects despite ending 2022 with a total net order deficit for 55 aircraft for its A330 and A350 families. The European airframer’s order and delivery data for the year shows that while it received orders for 12 A350-1000s and eight-900s, the tally was reduced by 23 and 11 cancellations, respectively. All 23 cancelled A350-1000 orders were for Qatar Airways and deleted from the orderbook by Airbus as part of their surface deterioration dispute relating to the long-haul aircraft. On the A330-900, Airbus’s net order tally stood at -65 units after it received 19 gross orders and 84 cancellations. The only positive widebody net result was for the under-development A350 Freighter, for which Airbus received 24 orders. During a 10 January press briefing, chief commercial officer Christian Scherer described the A350F order intake as an “inspiring result” for the type development which was launched in 2021. Scherer asserts that the cancellations were “largely anticipated” and that “the global sentiment on widebodies is rather positive”. He acknowledges that widebody order volumes are “not huge”. But he asserts that Airbus won eight out of a total 13 international passenger widebody sales campaigns in 2022. “I feel pretty good about the widebody,” he says in regard to ongoing international sales campaigns.

Spanish airports are nearing a complete recovery from the pandemic as passenger numbers reached 98.1% of 2019 levels in December.According to the airports operator AENA, 17.9 million customers passed through the country’s airports it operates in the month, an increase of 40% on last year. In total 243.7 million passengers passed through the country in 2022, more than double that of 2021, and down by just 11.5% on 2019. The country has benefitted from a recovery in domestic travel that saw 83.3 million passengers fly within the country in 2022, just 3.8% fewer than 2019. International passengers were 15% lower than 2019, at 160.6 million. 2022 saw aircraft 2.2 million aircraft movements, representing a recovery of 93.9% on 2019, while over a million tonnes of cargo were transported, just 6.5% less than in three years prior.