Passenger numbers at Spain’s airports in 2021 fall below half of pre-pandemic total

PASSENGER numbers improved substantially in 2021 across Spain’s airports compared to the previous year but remained well below pre-pandemic levels.

Airport operator Aena said nearly 120 million passengers travelled last year- a 57.7% rise on the 2020 total when the pandemic broke out and services were grounded for months.

Last year’s passenger total though is only 43.6% of the total reached in 2019.

International travellers were 64.3% fewer than two years earlier with a 39.2% drop in domestic users.

The two busiest airports were Madrid(24.1 million journeys) and Barcelona(18.8 million journeys).

Palma de Mallorca recorded the biggest annual rise with 14.4 million passengers- up by 137.3% on 2020 figures.

Ibiza also recorded a 129.9% annual increase with 4.8 million passengers.

The most promising month in terms of percentages was December.

Nearly 70% of 2019 figures for the same month were recovered with 12.6 million travellers.

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