In April of this year, some of the largest airports in the European Union, including here Schiphol in the Netherlands, Fraport in Germany, Vilnius in Lithuania, Copenhagen Airport in Denmark, and Brussels Airport in Belgium, recorded a surge in air passenger traffic.
During this period, the airport that welcomed the most passengers is Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, with a total of 5.1 million passengers. This figure shows an increase of 16 per cent compared to last year and 552 per cent compared to 2021, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
Schiphol Airport & Frankfurt Recorded Highest Number of Passengers in April 2023
Based on data from Schiphol, the number of flights to and from the airport was 36,258, which is also an increase of eight per cent more than in 2022 and 164 per cent more compared to 2021.
Passengers who travelled through the Amsterdam airport came from countries such as Great Britain, Spain, Italy, and the United States. The same source revealed that a total of 1.8 million passengers used Schiphol for transit, while 900,000 of them were unique passengers, which are counted as both arriving and departing passengers.
In addition, almost 3.6 million passengers travelled from or to a destination within Europe and 1.5 million outside Europe. Based on domestic passengers departing from Schiphol airport in April 2023, the most popular destinations were London, Barcelona, Istanbul, Dublin, Milan, Copenhagen, Madrid, Malaga, Dubai and Lisbon.
Passenger Demand Increased Steadily at Frankfurt Airport During April of This Year
The second main airport of the EU that recorded a large number of passengers last month is Frankfurt Airport (FRA) with about 4.8 million, marking an increase of 21.5 per cent from year to year.
Compared to the pre-pandemic period, FRA passenger traffic was still down by 20 per cent during April of this year.
According to the data, FRA’s cargo throughput, which includes air freight and air mail, also continued to decline by 8.5 per cent year-over-year to 154,926 metric tons in April 2023. Overall, growth was seen in aircraft movements by 9 .8 per cent year-over-year to 35,503 ups and downs.
Airports in Fraport’s international portfolio that reported continued traffic growth are Ljubljana Airport (LJU) in Slovenia, which recorded 95,105 passengers last month, an increase of 36.8 per cent year-on-year.
Flights Out of CPH to Southern Destinations Close to Pre-Covid Levels
According to Copenhagen Airport (CPH), this summer season Danish citizens will be offered 170 direct destinations in 50 countries to choose from, including 26 new ones.
The same revealed that in April of this year, a total of 2.2 million travellers passed through its terminals. This year for Denmark and Sweden was also an exceptional return to the destinations of Southern Europe. As a result, the number of passengers who travelled to countries such as France, Italy, Portugal and Turkey was greater in the first four months of this year compared to the same period in 2019.
Flights were already well booked last month with an average of 75 per cent of seats sold. Meanwhile, the busiest day of the corresponding month was the April 28 with 88,000 passengers.
On the other hand, about 50,000 of them were affected by delays that were mainly due to the lack of air traffic controllers at the company that controls air traffic in Danish airspace (NAVIAIR).
Number of Passengers at Brussels Airport Increased by 18% Compared to 2022
Brussels Airport also experienced an increase in the number of passengers by registering nearly 1.9 million, which is 18 per cent more than in April of last year. As for the share of departing transfer passengers, it was a total of 15 per cent, thus marking an increase of 40 per cent compared to last year.
Among the twenty most popular countries from where passengers travelled through Brussels airport last month were the following:
- Spain
- Italy
- Germany
- Portugal
- United States
- Turkey
- France
- United Kingdom
- Switzerland
- Morocco
Data provided by the airport also show that in April of this year, the volume of cargo flown showed a slight increase of one per cent. Meanwhile, total cargo volumes decreased by seven per cent compared to April 2022, to a total of 60,972 tonnes. This decrease is mainly due to a 36 per cent decrease in truck loads.
As for the main import regions, Asia topped the list with an increase of +20 per cent compared to April 2022, followed by Africa (-14 per cent compared to April 2022) and North America (+1 per cent compared to April last year).
In addition, the increase was also seen in the number of flight movements in April by eight per cent compared to 2022. At the same time, the number of passenger flights increased by ten per cent compared to a year ago and averaged 141 passengers per flight compared to with the figures of 2022 with 130 passengers.
Lithuania’s Kaunas Airport Reached Pre-pandemic Levels in April
With the continuous increase in air passenger traffic in April, Lithuanian airports also registered more than 497,000 passengers in April.
As for the most popular destinations for regular flights from Lithuanian airports, they remained the same this April and include London, Warsaw, Oslo, Copenhagen and Riga.
Meanwhile, the most popular charters were Antalya, Sharm el-Sheikh, Hurghada, Madeira and Alanya. Among the flights that increased the most with a total of 19 per cent were those in Antalya.
Commenting on these data, Head of Route Development at Lithuanian Airports Tomas Zitikis noted that during April 2023 Lithuanian airports managed to restore 92 per cent of passenger traffic before the pandemic.
According to him, Kaunas airport registered almost 115,000 passengers last month, which would mean a fifth more than in 2019’s record.
Overall, Vilnius Airport continues to handle the highest passenger flows since in April, more than 355,000 passengers used the gate, an increase of 11 per cent over last year, but 15 per cent less than in 2019.