Eating gelato under the Mediterranean sun or exploring a medieval city, North Americans can’t get enough of summer trips to Europe.
Business Insider analyzed data from Cirium, an aviation analytics firm, to create four charts that show how Eurosummer is on the rise — and which destinations are the trendiest.
We looked at the number of seats on flights from North America to Europe. Unlike just measuring the number of flights, this also accounts for the airplanes’ capacity.
In July 2026, airlines scheduled 69% more seats than in July 2010. Meanwhile, the number of flights went up 59%, from roughly 15,700 to 24,900.
As the data is based on flight schedules, it does not necessarily show where tourists are most excited to go, but passenger demand still informs where airlines send their fleets and launch new routes.
Cirium’s data also show that the summer peak is becoming more pronounced than winter travel. In 2026, capacity increased 77% between January and July, compared with 50% in 2010.
However, there is also evidence that the summer travel season is getting longer, as more people choose to fly later in the year.
Spanish government statistics show that the number of Americans arriving in the country increased by 57% between October 2019 and October 2025, while overall arrivals during the summer months increased by a quarter.
Which countries are becoming more popular?
The UK has long been the most popular transatlantic market — its 15 million annual seats are nearly double those of France and Germany — due to strong business links and airline partnerships that make it a useful hub connecting to destinations elsewhere in Europe.
To find where more North Americans are flocking, we focused on changes in flight capacity between the years ending in July 2023 and July 2026. This also helps minimize the fluctuation in recovery times from the pandemic.
That expansion has not been spread evenly across Europe.
Only four countries saw fewer seats across the period. There are no longer any flights to Ukraine due to the war, while Norway and Sweden both dropped over half, and Belgium dipped by 3%.
Three countries saw over 1 million seats added in that time. Unsurprisingly, they are already Europe’s most popular for tourists: Italy, Spain, and France.
However, percentage growth shows that the fastest-growing markets are not all traditional hot spots.
We excluded destinations with fewer than 10,000 scheduled seats in the year ending July 2023, so that small base numbers wouldn’t skew the results relative to busier destinations.
It is clear that tourists are besotted with Italy. Airlines added more seats there than to any other European country, and it ranked fourth for proportional increase — up 52%.
Czechia and Croatia stand out as the only two countries where airlines are sending at least double the capacity they had in the year ending July 2023. Over the past year, airlines have relaunched routes to Prague, known for its striking medieval Gothic architecture. Croatia also offers a dose of historic attractions plus a host of beaches on the Adriatic Sea.
While the UK as a whole saw only a 4% increase in the number of seats, capacity on flights to Scotland increased by 70%. As well as the Highlands’ mountainous vistas, Edinburgh attracts visitors from across the world for its performing-arts festival in August.
Ireland also continues to rise in popularity. Dublin and Shannon are the only European airports where you can cross the American border before taking off for the US.
Denmark is propping up travel to Scandinavia, thanks to fashionable Copenhagen and new flights to Billund, home of Lego.
Which European cities are the trendiest?
The picture gets more specific when you zoom into the airport level. We excluded airports that weren’t served pre-pandemic or had fewer than 10,000 seats in the year ending July 2023.
Flights to Naples, Italy, now have room for more than five times as many passengers as in the year ending July 2023. In the past few years, United Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and Air Canada have all launched new routes to the home of pizza and the gateway to the picturesque Amalfi Coast.
Dubrovnik, a coastal Croatian city known for its medieval walls, found fame in the 2010s as a filming location for “Game of Thrones,” but it has continued to soar in popularity.
While flights to France as a whole saw only a 16% increase in capacity, three French airports made the top 10.
Portugal is also proving popular, with two cities on the list. Last summer, United launched flights from Newark to Faro, the capital of Portugal’s seaside Algarve region. And in August, American Airlines said it will start flying to Porto for the first time ever, starting March 2027.
