Airports in Portugal have continued to register a record number of passengers this year, with July’s figures showing a year-on-year increase of 12.5% — roughly seven million passengers. The official figures were published by INE (Statistics Portugal), noting that the summer month registered the highest average number of daily arrivals “since records began”.
“Since the beginning of 2023, there have been historic highs in monthly passenger numbers at national airports,” reads INE’s statement, detailing that in July there were 117,200 passengers disembarking on average per day, “a figure higher than in July 2022 (104,300; +12.4%) and 11.1% higher than in July 2019 (105,500), which corresponds to the highest average daily figure since records began.“
Seven million passengers and 18,700 tonnes of cargo and mail were handled at national airports in July, corresponding to variations of +12.5% and -5.7%, respectively, compared to July 2022, according to the “Rapid Air Transport Statistics“. Compared to July 2019, there were increases of 10.8% and 1.5%, respectively.
From January to July 2023, the number of passengers increased by 25.2% compared to the same period in 2022, while freight and mail movements fell by 1.6%. Comparing to the same period in 2019, there were increases of 11.8% and 8.2%, respectively.
The majority of passengers handled were international traffic: in July this translated into 81.7% of passengers disembarking at national airports, of which three million came mostly from the European continent.
Airports on the American continent were the second main destination for boarding passengers (9.8% of the total; +13.6%). Of the total of 38,274,000 passengers handled between January and July, Lisbon airport handled 50.0% (19.1 million), having grown by 27.1% when compared to the same period in 2022 (+8.0% compared to 2019).
Porto airport accounted for 22.4% of total passengers and grew by 25.7% (+15.2% compared to 2019), while Faro airport grew by 19.2% (+5.4% compared to the same period in 2019).
Considering the volume of passengers disembarked and embarked on international flights between January and July, the United Kingdom was the main country of origin and destination for flights, with growth of 20.8% in the number of passengers disembarked and 22.4% in the number of passengers embarked, compared to the same period in 2022.
France was in second place, with increases of 21.6% and 22.2%, respectively, followed by Spain, with “significant increases” compared to the same period in 2022 (+42.6% as the country of origin of flights and +42.8% as the country of destination).
