Portuguese airports handle around four million passengers in October, only 30% below pre-pandemic levels

National airports received around four million passengers in November, representing an increase of 180.6% compared to the same month last year. Data published Tuesday by Statistics Portugal (INE) showed that the air transport sector remains about 30% below pre-pandemic levels, although October was the month closest to this period.

In October, 15.8 thousand commercial aircraft landed at national airports (+63.2%, vis-à-vis October 2020), transporting around four million passengers, and 8.1 thousand tonnes of freight and mail were handled (+27.5%, vis-à-vis October 2020, respectively).

Between January and October 2021, there was a movement of 19.8 million passengers, which represents an increase of 18.6% compared with the same period of 2020.

Considering the volume of passengers disembarked and embarked on international flights between January and October 2021, France remained the main country of origin and destination of flights (around 1.5 million passengers), followed by the United Kingdom and Germany.