Greece’s Regional Airports Hit New Passenger Record in August

Photo © Greek Travel Pages (GTP)

The demand for holidays this August in most of the Greek destinations where the 14 airports managed by Fraport Greece are located exceeded the levels seen in pre-crisis 2019.

According to the latest data, traffic numbers at the 14 regional airports (Aktio, Chania, Corfu, Kavala, Kefalonia, Thessaloniki, Zakynthos, Kos, Mytilini, Mykonos, Rhodes, Samos, Santorini, Skiathos) rose to over 6.1 million passengers, up 2.5 percent when compared with the same month in 2022 (5.99 million).

Domestic traffic was up by 8.9 percent to 855,000 passengers and international traffic grew by 1.5 percent to 5.2 million.

The best percentage performance was recorded by Thessaloniki’s airport with an increase of 10.7 percent. Rhodes airport handled the most passengers in August, exceeding 1.08 million, down by 4.6 percent compared to 2022. Rhodes also saw a drop in international traffic by 6.1 percent compared to 2022.

Mykonos and Santorini lagged in passenger traffic by 2.9 percent and 6.1 percent respectively compared to last year. Another destination that recorded less passenger numbers in August compared to last year was Samos with a slight decrease of 1.5 percent.

Photo © Greek Travel Pages (GTP)

Compared to pre-crisis August 2019: 12.1% increase

When compared to August 2019, passenger traffic during the same month this year recorded a double-digit increase of 12.1 percent with international traffic up by 13.7 percent and domestic traffic by 2.8 percent.

The majority of airports recorded double-digit growth rates compared to 2019 highs: Aktio (27.6 percent), Chania (24.5 percent), Corfu (26.6 percent), Kefalonia (13.6 percent), Zakynthos (13.8 percent), Mykonos (10.4 percent), Santorini (31.3 percent) and Skiathos (23.3 percent).

The month, however, saw less passengers for some airports such as Kavala (-6.9 percent), Mytilini (-2.1 percent) and Samos (-1.2 percent) compared to 2019.

January-August

Traffic at the 14 regional airports during the eight-month January–August period exceeded 24 million passengers compared to 22 million in 2022, with an increase of 8.5 percent. During the first eight months of the year, domestic traffic was up by 18.4 percent and international traffic by 6.2 percent.

All destinations, except Mykonos, recorded positive results with the largest percentage increase (20.8 percent) recorded at Thessaloniki’s airport.

Compared to 2019, most of the regional airports saw an increase in passenger traffic in the January–August period except Mytilini (down by 0.6 percent), Kavala (-5.6 percent) and Samos (-0.6 percent). On the other hand, the best percentage performances were recorded by Aktio (+29.2 percent), Skiathos (+25.7 percent), Chania (+21 percent) and Corfu (+22.3 percent).

The number of flights touching down at Greece’s 14 regional airports increased by 6.5 percent during January-August, compared to the corresponding period of 2019. In August alone, flights rose by 8.1 percent compared to the same month of 2019 and by 0.3 percent, compared to last year.

Source markets

The main source markets for Greece’s 14 regional airports in August were the UK, Germany, Italy, Poland and France.

More specifically, according to the data, arrivals from the two largest source markets of inbound tourism for Greece, the United Kingdom and Germany, exceeded 648,000 and 387,000 respectively. Arrivals from Italy exceeded 307,000, while 162,000 and 112,000 travelers came from Poland and France respectively.