Palma the only large European airport with more flights than in 2019

Son Sant Joan is ninth on the list

Ryanair planes at Palma Airport, Mallorca

More flights but fewer passengers. | Miquel À. Cañellas

Andrew EdePalma04/01/2023 07:59

According to the Performance 2022 report from Eurocontrol's Aviation Intelligence Unit, Palma Son Sant Joan was the only one of Europe's large airports to increase the number of flights in 2022 compared with pre-pandemic 2019.

This growth, attributed to the reactivation of tourism from different source markets, resulted in Palma entering the top ten of Europe's airports for the first time - the top ten in terms of flights - which also features the likes of Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Heathrow as well as Madrid-Barajas and Barcelona-El Prat, the two busiest Spanish airports.

The analysis is based on average daily arrivals and departures over the course of 2022. For Palma, this figure was 604, an increase of one per cent compared with 2019. The largest percentage decrease was -32% for Munich, one place above Palma in eighth.

There is a caveat to this report in that Istanbul, number one on the list with a daily average of 1,156, is given an 'n/a' for 2019 comparative purposes. The report also recognises the impact of war in Ukraine and of flight cancellations at various airports in 2022.

Eurocontrol doesn't give passenger numbers in its 2022 analysis, but provisional forecasts from the Aena airports authority in Spain suggest a fall of some 1.2 million passengers at Palma - down from 29.7 million in 2019 to 28.5 million in 2022.

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2 comments

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Morgan Williams | over 2 years ago

Don't you just hate it when all your dreams of vindication are dashed by reality? I suppose you can always resort to more wishful thinking. But unfortunately, we all know how that turns out. Still, this might help explain why alternate reality is so popular. Oh, by the way.. Airports tend to make improvements and repairs during periods of low traffic, you know, to minimise disruption? But let's not allow that to get in the way of a good alternate reality rant.

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Stan The Man | over 2 years ago

Initially Palma Airport was built to accomodate millions of passengers. Also several thousand Flights. But in the Winter as numerous repairs are needed. This Airport is losing its efficiency and remains at number 7 on the table of Airports. This is a great shame when billions of Euros were and continue to be spent on its structures.

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