Passenger Traffic at Greek Airports Up 30.9% in March 2018

Greece’s airports served over 6.2 million passengers during the January-March 2018 period, which is a 5.9 percent increase year-on-year, the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority (HCAA) said on Thursday.

In March alone, international arrivals reached 745,608, showing a significant increase of 30.9 percent compared to 2017 (569,830).

According to HCAA statistics, the total number of passengers in the first three months of the year reached 6,285,500, an increase over the corresponding 2017 period, when 5,933,681 passengers were recorded.

The total number of flights to Greek airports amounted to 61,688 (of which 34,669 domestic and 27,019 international), showing a rise of 2,1 percent, compared to the corresponding period of 2017 (60,427 flights).

Kavala Airport. Photo: © Sakis79 / Wikimedia Commons

The airport of Kavala recorded the highest passenger traffic growth during the January-March 2018, with a 409,8 percent increase. According to HCAA, Kavala’s airport served 80,343 passengers during the first quarter of 2018 against 15,760 in the corresponding 2017 period.

During the first three months of the year, the airports of Naxos and Milos also recorded growth in passenger traffic of 182.5 percent and 111 percent respectively.

In March, a total of 2,443,318 passengers passed through Greek airports, with an average increase of 10.6 percent. The total number of flights to Greek airports reached 23,085, an increase of 5.3 percent compared to the corresponding period of 2017 (21.914 flights).

The largest passenger traffic was recorded at Athens, Thessaloniki, Heraklion, Rhodes and Chania airports.

Q1 2018 passenger traffic in Fraport-run regional airports

The total number of passengers traveling through Greek airports during the January-March 2018 period may have reported a rise overall, however German transport company Fraport on Thursday reported that the 14 Greek regional airports it manages saw traffic slightly decrease by 2.1 percent to a combined total of some 1.8 million passengers.

“The primary contributing factor here was reduced flight operations at the high-traffic Thessaloniki Airport, required for runway construction works. As a result, SKG’s passenger traffic dropped by 7.0 percent during the reporting period. In the meantime, the SKG runway project has been completed,” Fraport said in an announcement.

In March alone, the airports run by Fraport Greece recorded a 5.9 percent increase in passenger traffic, compared to the same month last year.