Air passenger traffic posts record high

Greek airports posted an all-time high in terms of passenger traffic last year, which amounted to almost 65.4 million, up 5 percent or 3.1 million passengers from 2018, Civil Aviation Authority data showed on Wednesday.

The number of flights that landed at and took off from Greek airports rose 3.7 percent last year, to 538,956, from 519,548 in 2018. The number of domestic flights came to 213,098  and international ones to 325,858.

In December 2019 alone passenger traffic expanded 3.9 percent year-on-year to 2.51 million, but international arrivals grew 10.9 percent to almost 670,000.

Athens Airport climbed to a new record high of 25.57 million passengers in 2019, up 6 percent from the 24.13 million that used it in 2018. That was thanks to international traffic, which rose 8.6 percent year-on-year to 17.82 million passengers.

The airports that saw the biggest growth last year were those of Ioannina (by 23 percent to 134,011 passengers), Naxos (21 percent to 103,463) and Kalamata (20 percent to 333,455).

In December the airports with the most traffic were Athens (1.67 million passengers), Thessaloniki (450,000), Iraklio (112,000), Rhodes (56,000) and Hania (55,500).