Record summer season at Košice Airport
Košice, 13th October 2014
Rich offer of tour operators brought record number of passengers to Košice Airport. During the summer season of 2014 Košice Airport welcomed 119 920 charter passengers making it the best summer season ever with 30% annual increase and 15% increase as compared to the best summer season so far in 2011. In total 441 charter flights from/to 10 countries were handled. The first flight departed on 24th May to Hurghada and the last one arrived on 1st October from Antalya.
During the sunniest period of the year, the tour operators certainly offered 17 attractive seaside destinations with departure from Košice and the response from holiday makers from Eastern Slovakia was impressive. In accordance with the tradition from the previous years, the most demanded destination was Antalya with more than 40 000 passengers, followed by Bourgas with 25 000 passengers and Monastir with around 10 000 passengers. In addition, following 14 charter destinations were operated from Košice: Ajaccio, Cagliari, Catania, Enfidha, Heraklion, Hurghada, Corfu, Kos, Lamezia Terme, Malaga, Olbia, Rijeka, Rhodos, Ercan.
Chief executive officer and chairman of the management board of Košice Airport, Karl Dandler: "Thanks to the strong charter season, very successful Wizz Air operations to London and stable performance of flag carriers Austrian and Czech Airlines, we have welcomed 299 039 passengers during the period January – September 2014 what represents an annual increase of 54%. According to our forecast we expect to reach the level of 350 000 passengers by the end of this year.”
The head of marketing Juraj Toth revealed additional information and future plans: “Now we can say that the busiest day of this year was 29th July when we welcomed 3 987 passengers on 15 flights. Regarding development of charter operations, for the next year we have in mind year-round charters to one of the destinations in Egypt and a summer connection to Croatia. We are convinced that both of these projects have enormous potential and that by intensive cooperation of all parties involved – tour operators, airport, airlines – we can make it happen.”