ARCHIVED - AndalucÃa airport traffic down by 87 per cent from pre-pandemic March levels
Passenger numbers decimated at Málaga and other Andalucía destinations
The latest data published by Spain’s airport management company Aena regarding passenger numbers illustrate the continuing decimation of the international tourism industry during the coronavirus pandemic, and the figures for the airports of Andalucía paint an especially grim picture.
During the first three months of 2021 it is reported that 684,268 passengers passed through the terminal buildings at the airports of the region, including 440,159 at Málaga-Costa del Sol. However, this total represents a decrease of 84.2 per cent in comparison with twelve months previously – it should be remembered that it was during March last year that Spain declared its first national state of emergency in response to the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic – and 87.1 per cent from March 2019.
A similar decrease can be seen at the airport of Sevilla (155,708 passengers, decreases of 88.6 and 90.8 per cent in comparison with 2020 and 2019), although at the smaller facilities elsewhere in the region the falls are slightly less drastic. The figure in Granada-Jaén is extremely low at just 38,000 in three months but the decrease is “only” 86.8 per cent since 2019, while in Almería (27,729) a drop of 78.2 per cent is reported since two years ago.
At Jérez de la Frontera there were only just over 22,000 passengers in the first three months of this year, while activity at Córdoba has almost stopped completely. Aena report only 203 passengers in March, and a quarterly total of 564, equating to an average of only 6 people per day!
In Spain as a whole, Aena reports that the number of passengers arriving and departing on both international and domestic flights during the first quarter of 2021 reached 8.24 million, representing a decrease of 80.4 per cent from last year and 84.4 per cent from the year before. The busiest airports were, as ever, those of Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas (2.57 million passengers after a fall of 76.7 per cent since last year) and Barcelona El Prat (down by 86.1 per cent to 1.12 million), while the decimation of tourism has resulted in even more drastic falls in the level of activity at airports on the Costas and the Balearic and Canary Islands.