Nearly 19 million air passengers in Q3 2022

Apart from the passenger numbers, the number of passenger flights also showed an increase. There were 124 thousand passenger flights in Q3 2022, i.e. almost 27 percent up on Q3 2021 and almost double the number in Q3 2020. In Q3 2019, there were almost 150 thousand passenger flights.

Higher occupancy rate than in previous years

In Q3 2022, the average aircraft occupancy rate on flights to and from the five major airports was just below 80 percent; this was slightly over 66 percent in Q3 2021. The occupancy rate was still below 48 percent in Q3 2020, while it exceeded 83 percent in Q3 2019.

3/4 of passengers travelled within Europe

In Q3 2022, nearly 75 percent of all air passengers (13.9 million people) flew to or from an airport within Europe. The most popular countries of origin and destination were Spain, the United Kingdom and Italy. Among passengers travelling outside Europe, slightly over a third (1.7 million) flew to or from the United States. The next most popular destinations outside Europe were Canada and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Although more people travelled by air in Q3 2019 (23.1 million people) than in the same quarter of 2022, the share of all air passengers to and from destinations within Europe was similar (74.1 percent). In the third quarter of 2020 and 2021, due to restrictive measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, travellers stayed closer to home; 87.1 and 80.4 percent of all airline passengers travelled to and from destinations within Europe, respectively.