Greek Airports: Passenger Traffic Continues Upsurge in August

Passenger traffic at Greek airports continued an upsurge for the second month in a row, according to data released by the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority (HCAA) on Friday.

Arrivals from abroad to Greek airports in August increased by 82.6 percent, a fact that shows that the country’s air traffic is recovering following the Covid-19 pandemic period and the collapse of the market in 2020.

“Both July and August were the first two consecutive months since the start of the pandemic that passenger traffic showed a significant increase,” the HCAA said.

According to the data, the total number of passengers (arrivals/departures) handled at Greek airports last month reached 8,063,277 million, a 77.7 percent increase compared to August 2020.

Greek airports saw arrivals from abroad reach 3,042,098, recording an impressive increase of 82.6 percent compared to the corresponding month last year.

The total number of flights (international and domestic) amounted to 71,248, marking an increase of 47.2 percent compared to August 2020.

The HCAA said that when comparing the data with August 2019 pre-Covid figures, arrivals from abroad are down by only 23.5 percent (3.9 million passengers in August 2019) and total passenger traffic by only 21.2 percent (10.2 million people in August 2019).

January-August 2021

With regard to the eight-month January-August 2021 period, the HCAA said data was positive for the second consecutive month, with the total amount of passenger traffic showing an increase of 53.7 percent to 20.7 million people compared to the first eight months of 2020.

Flights during January-August increased to 235,570 – of which 103,755 were domestic and 131,815 were international – showing an increase of 38.6 percent compared to last year.

Compared to the first eight months of 2019, in January-August 2021 there is a decrease of 36.1 percent in the number of flights and a drop of 53.8 percent in total passenger traffic.