Athens : After a long 34 months period, PAX traffic in January above January 2019 traffic, by +3.9%

During January 2023, the airport’s passenger traffic amounted to 1.45 million, i.e. 87.2% above January 2022 (which was still significantly impacted by the COVID19 pandemic), but also 3.9% higher than the pre-COVID January 2019. Domestic and International passengers surpassed the 2022 levels by 59.7% and 103.4%, while also exceeding the 2019 levels by 1.8% and 5%, respectively.

Equally, number of flights during January 2023 amounted to 13,832, i.e. 26.6% above the respective 2022 levels and 1.3% above the corresponding 2019 levels. Analytically, both domestic and international flights were above the 2022 volumes by 19.2% and 32.9%, respectively, while versus the 2019 levels the observed growth was at the level of 2.6% and 0.4%, respectively.

February 2020, was the last time PAX traffic at Athens was above 2019 same month, when at the outbreak of the COVID19 pandemic, traffic fall down to single digit (vs 2019). Following the positive momentum in Summer 2022 and strong Q4 performance, PAX traffic went above 2019 for the first time, after a long 34 months period.

PAX traffic growth in January was boosted by the Domestic market, as well as strong performance in the International segment, driven by Israel with over 21,000 additional round-trip PAX, Austrian with 11,700 PAX, Cyprus with 9,000 PAX, Albania with 7,600 PAX and USA with 4,000 more PAX to January 2019. New International markets with direct service, compared to January 2019, included Ethiopia, Montenegro and Latvia.

The start of the new year, also brought some very promising news with the addition of many new routes in the Athens network. Based on the information so far, in 2023 Athens will welcome 13 New destinations (unserved from 2019 to 2022) and 3 New Airlines, plus a further 15 New services on existing routes.