Greek regional airports set to break passenger records

Greek regional airports are just a hair’s length away from the record performances of 2019 . In the first ten months of the year, the 14 airports managed by Fraport Greece handled 29.8 million passengers, just 320,145 less than the first twelve months of 2019. October continued a streak of breaking monthly records that began in June. The high performance of Greek tourism boosted passenger traffic at the country’s 14 regional gateways.

This year’s October was one of the best in recent years for Greek tourism. The season closes later this year than other years for several airlines. For example, in the week of November 3-9, 2022, according to Eurocontrol data, flights in Greece decreased by 33% compared to the previous week. However, with good weather as an ally, the momentum is still maintained, while Greece figures among the top five destinations for Europeans in winter as well.

Passenger traffic at the 14 regional airports, for the period January – August 2022, reached 29,830,592 passengers, an increase of 82.5% compared to 2021, when 16,344,901 passengers had been handled. The airports of Kefalonia (+172.8%), Skiathos (+149.8%) and Akti (+107.9%) recorded a more than double increase in passengers in the ten months. Rhodes emerged as the champion with 5,723,550 passengers, followed by Thessaloniki with 5,124,362.

International traffic surpassed 2019

International traffic recorded 24,399,782 passengers, up by 87.6% compared to 2021 and higher than 2019. In 2019, international passengers had risen to 23,247,951 on an annual basis, 4.72% less in relation to this year’s ten months. Impressive are the performances of the airport of Rhodes, which for the first ten months of 2022 exceeded 5 million international passengers, reaching the top among the 14 airports.

In particular, in October the 14 airports recorded 2,826,113, increased by 16.7% compared to the corresponding month last year, while the increase compared to 2019 amounted to 11.5%, when 2,535,157 passengers were recorded. The increase in passenger traffic was led by international traffic, which increased by 14.9% compared to 2019 and by 14.6% compared to 2021.

The most popular destinations for October were the airports of Rhodes, Thessaloniki, Chania, Kos, Corfu and Santorini. Significantly increased compared to 2019 was passenger traffic at the airports of Akti (+74.8%), Skiathos (+41.4%) and Kos (+24%). On the contrary, passenger traffic remained below the performance of October 2019, at the airports of Thessaloniki (-6.3%), Samos (-8.8%), Kavala (-45.4%) and marginally Mytilini.

Most flights flew to and from Fraport Greece’s regional airports from the United Kingdom and Germany, 4,325 and 4,096 respectively, which are also traditional Greek tourism markets. Followed by the Netherlands, France, Italy, Poland, which has had a strong presence in recent years, Denmark, Switzerland, Israel.

It is noted that, according to data from ACI Europe, Greek airports, during the third quarter of the year, were the only ones, along with those of Luxembourg and Iceland, that managed to surpass pre-pandemic levels. They saw a passenger increase of 4.8% compared to the corresponding quarter of 2019. They were followed by Luxembourg with a 3.3% increase and Iceland with a 1% increase.