Athens Airport Takes the Lead in Europe with Strong First Half of 2023

Based on Airports Council International Europe (ACI Europe) data, Athens was among those in Europe reporting the highest increases in passenger traffic in the first half of the year compared to the same period in pre-Covid 2019, in its group of large European airports with over 25mio PAX traffic annually. Robust passenger traffic was mainly driven by the Leisure/VFR segment and strong transatlantic demand.

Athens achieved a 7.3% growth in Passenger traffic versus the 1st half of 2019, massively outperforming almost all European metropolitan airports as well as the European average of -7.7% ( Table below).

In terms of Passenger traffic on Scheduled, non-stop services only, Domestic traffic grew by 9.8% to H1 2019 resulting in 340 thousand additional passengers, while International traffic grew by 6.0% with 470 thousand additional passengers.

Israel and USA hold the TOP2 positions in ranking with 154 thousand additional passengers each, followed by the UK with 91 thousand and France with 67 thousand additional passengers. For the European cities, Milan generated 62 thousand additional passengers in the 1st half of 2023, when compared to the same period in 2019, followed closely by Munich with 61 thousand, Tirana with 55 thousand, Vienna with 54 and Paris with 47 thousand additional passengers. In terms of Non-European cities, Tel-Aviv holds TOP position with 154 thousand additional passengers, followed by 3 US cities with New York in the 2nd position and 77 thousand additional PAX to 2019, Atlanta with 61 thousand, Washington with 26 thousand. Impressively, Cairo is in the 5th position with 25 thousand additional passengers to 2019. In the Domestic front, 70 and 68 thousand additional passengers recorded at the 2 Cretan airports, followed by Paros with 43 thousand, Alexandroupoli and Chios with 18 thousand each.

Growth in PAX traffic at ATH further increased in July and August, recording a strong growth of more than 8% for the first 8 months of the year versus same period 2019.

Overall, the RECORD growth in passenger traffic at Athens International Airport is not generated only from a few markets/destinations, but all markets in all regions are recording strong performance in traffic.