Airports do better in March
Passenger traffic at the 14 largest airports outside of Athens – operated by Fraport Greece – showed a slight decrease in the first quarter of this year compared to the corresponding period in 2019. However, March data showed an increase compared to the same month of record year 2019, while compared to March and the first quarter of 2022, the number of passengers showed a high increase, amounting to 33% and 43%, respectively.
The 14 airports handled 2.5% more passengers in March from four years earlier, as their total number reached 731,000. The highest growth rate belonged to Corfu, where the Ioannis Kapodistrias Airport welcomed 34% more people compared to March 2019, for a total of 32,410.
It was followed by Hania and Skiathos, whose airports transported 33.5% more visitors. In the first month of this spring, the Diagoras Airport of Rhodes also showed a significant increase in passenger traffic; it handled 71,330 passengers, which is 31.3% more than in March 2019. On the other hand, traffic at Kavala airport showed a decrease of 24.2%, to 4,835 people, while the number of passengers at Santorini airport also showed a double-digit drop (-16.4%) compared to four years earlier.
International passenger traffic showed significant growth in March compared to the same month of 2019, increasing by 14.1%, to a total of 290,500 people. In Rhodes, the number of foreign passengers soared to 15,450, up from just 219 in March 2019. Mykonos and Corfu, compared to March 2019, welcomed around 20 and 10 times more foreign visitors, whose numbers amounted to 864 and 10,520, respectively.
However, the picture is different for domestic traffic, which decreased by 4% (440,500) compared to March 2019. The biggest drop in domestic passengers from four years earlier was seen at the airports of Kavala (-24.5 %) and Santorini (-22.1%). At the Makedonia Airport of Thessaloniki, passenger traffic fell by 4.1%, to 420,200 people.
In Q1 the 14 regional airports handled 1.89 million people, 1.8% down from the corresponding period of 2019.
