Greece’s Regional Airports Outdo Pre-Covid 2019 Traffic Levels in April
Greece’s 14 regional airports exceeded pre-Covid 2019 levels last month handling a total of 1.6 million passengers, said managing company Fraport Greece.
More specifically, according to Fraport data, traffic through regional airports increased by 13.3 percent over the same month in 2019 to 1.6 million arrivals up from 1.44 million in April 2019.
Domestic traffic grew by 8.6 percent over 2019 and international traffic by 15.9 percent compared to pre-pandemic levels.
The largest increases in traffic were reported by the airports of Aktio (44.2 percent), Skiathos (43.1 percent), Rhodes (38.6 percent), and Zakynthos (30.2 percent). While the airports of Kavala (-9 percent), Kefalonia (-21.2 percent) and Mykonos (-16.3 percent) were still lagging behind pre-Covid levels in April.
Looking at the first four months of the year, passenger traffic grew by 4.7 percent over 2019 to 3.5 million passengers. International traffic increased by 11.4 percent to 1.78 million up from 1.59 million in the January-April period in 2019. On the downside, domestic traffic dropped by 1.4 percent to 1.73 million in the period under review.
Meanwhile, Thessaloniki airport recovered lost ground reaching pre-Covid levels with 1.7 million arrivals.
Again for the four-month period, the highest percentage increases were recorded by the airports of Aktio (39.1 percent) and Skiathos (41.3 percent). In the January-April period, Rhodes figures also increased by 29 percent with international traffic up by a massive 60 percent over the same period in 2019 and domestic arrivals by 5.1 percent.
Mykonos and Santorini airports however saw passenger traffic figures drop by 7.5 percent and 8.2 percent, respectively, despite being two of the country’s top destinations.
Like last year, activity at the country’s regional airports boosted the Fraport Group’s Q1 revenues by 41.9 percent year-on-year to 765.6 million euros and the operating result (EBITDA) to 158.3 million euros.