Passenger traffic at Greek airports recorded a significant increase in February, with the number of passengers exceeding 2 million, up 53.3% in comparison with the same period in 2022 and up 1.5% compared with February 2019, the Civil Aviation Authority said on Thursday.
More specifically, according to provisional data, the number of passengers totalled 2,072,960 in February, from 1,351,951 in 2022 and 2,042,595 in 2019.
The data indicates that Greek airport passenger traffic has now, not only, recovered to pre COVID levels, but surpassed them and on a growth trajectory.
In the first two months of the year, passenger traffic (international and domestic) totalled 4,282,553, up 64.4% from the corresponding period in 2022 and up 2.5% from 2019.
The number of scheduled flights totalled 19,605 in February and 41,933 in the first two months of 2023, up 12.4% and 15.8%, compared with the same periods in 2022, respectively.
For the whole of 2022 Greece saw it’s passenger arrivals increase by 89.3 percent to 27,835,500 up from 14,704,900 in 2021 generating €17.63 billion (AUD$28.55 billion) in travel receipts or a 67.9 percent rise over the previous year, according to the Bank of Greece (BoG).
Greece’s tourism revenue remained down by 3 percent compared to pre-CVID 2019, at €18.18 billion (AUD$30.49 billion) but is forecast to surpass 2019 levels this year according to comments made by Greece’s Minister for Tourism, Vassilis Kikilias in last month.
Spending per trip declined by 11.9 percent in 2022 over 2021 but exceeded 2019 levels by 9.7 percent.
More specifically, travel receipts last year generated by EU residents were up by 46.8 percent to €9,977,700 billion and by non-residents by 105.2 percent to €7,245,900 billion.
With AMNA
