Air passenger traffic quadrupled in Q2 year-on-year

Increased aircraft occupancy rate

In addition to the passenger numbers, the number of passenger flights also showed an increase in the first half of 2021. There were 44 percent more flights in Q2 2021 relative to Q1 2021. There was an 88-percent decrease on the previous quarter instead in Q2 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The aircraft occupancy rate showed an increase as well. Whereas the average occupancy on passenger flights in Q1 of this year stood at 35 percent, in Q2 this was 44 percent. The average occupancy rate in Q2 2020 stood at 39 percent.

Most passengers travelling to Spain

Increase in air cargo transport

Both the first and second quarters of 2021 saw an increase in the total volume of cargo transported by air relative to the same period a year previously, by nearly 18 percent and 33 percent, respectively.

At Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, which in the second quarter of 2021 accounted for over 93 percent of the air cargo transported in the Netherlands, 426 thousand tonnes of cargo were handled; a year-on-year increase of 39 percent. At Maastricht Aachen Airport, which handled the remaining air cargo in the Netherlands, the volume of air cargo transported decreased by more than 18 percent to almost 30 thousand tonnes in the same period.

For many years, the bulk of air cargo has been transported to and from with Asia, particularly China. That has remained unchanged despite the imposition of the COVID-19 countermeasures. The second quarter of 2021 saw 77 thousand tonnes of cargo traded with China, an increase of 7 percent versus the same period a year previously and up more than 4 percent versus the second quarter of 2019. Of the nearly 64 thousand tonnes of air cargo transported within Europe, nearly 24 thousand tonnes were on account of Russia.