Spanish Airport Traffic Continues At Very Depressed Levels: 69.6% Drop In August

Aena

The airports in the Aena network closed August with 8,951,753 passengers, 69.6% fewer than in the same month last year, along with 142,962 aircraft movements, 39.1% fewer than in August 2019, and 59,819 tons of freight, 28.6% lower. 

Out of the total number of passengers recorded in August, 8,909,752 were commercial passengers with 4,838,712 on domestic flights, 41.6% less than in August 2019, and 4,071,040 on international routes, down by 80.7%.

Traffic by airports

In August, Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport had the highest number of passengers in the network at 1,356,383 travellers, which is a 76.6% decrease compared to the same month in 2019. It is followed by Palma de Mallorca with 1,240,113 (-71%); Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat with 1,110,578  (-79.5%); Málaga-Costa del Sol with 677,874 (-69.3%); Ibiza with 574,974 (-58.2%); Alicante-Elche with 480,710 (-71.6%), and Gran Canaria with 469,560 (-56.6%).

In terms of the number of operations, the airport that recorded the highest number of movements in August was Palma de Mallorca with a total of 15,562 (-45.9%), followed by Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas with 15,182 (-59.1%); Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat with 14,045 (-57%); Málaga-Costa del Sol with 8,932 (-42.9%); Ibiza with 8,368 (-31.8%); Gran Canaria with 7,088 (-33.2%); Tenerife Norte-Ciudad de La Laguna with 5,948 (-12.4%), and Alicante-Elche with 5,810 (-46%).

The airports mainly operating non-commercial flights with the highest number of movements in August were Madrid-Cuatro Vientos with 5,268 operations (+6.6% compared to the same month in 2019), Jerez with 4,863 (-3.1%) and Sabadell with 4,211 (-6.1%).

As far as goods are concerned, 59,819 tons of freight were handled throughout the network in August, 28.6% less than in the same month in 2019 due to the fact that a very significant part of regular freight is carried in commercial passenger planes.

The four airports with the highest freight traffic were Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas with 27,713 tons (-37.5%); Zaragoza with 14,717 tons (-5.7%); Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat with 8,037 tons (-39.1%), and Vitoria with 4,454 tons (+8.3%).

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The Corner
The Corner has a team of on-the-ground reporters in capital cities ranging from New York to Beijing. Their stories are edited by the teams at the Spanish magazine Consejeros (for members of companies’ boards of directors) and at the stock market news site Consenso Del Mercado (market consensus). They have worked in economics and communication for over 25 years.