In the past year, a total of 71.3 million travelers passed through the five main airports in the Netherlands, as reported by Statistics Netherlands (CBS), the country’s statistics agency. This marked a 16% increase from the previous year, although it is still below pre-pandemic levels.
The increase in travelers was accompanied by a nine percent rise in commercial flights, reaching a total of 506,000 flights. However, air freight transport experienced a nine percent decrease, totaling 1.4 million tonnes.
The majority of passengers, 69.1 million, traveled through Schiphol Airport, with the remaining passengers split among Eindhoven Airport, The Hague Airport, Maastricht Aachen Airport, and Groningen Airport Eelde. Although the total passenger traffic is still below 2019 levels, Rotterdam, The Hague Airport, and Eindhoven Airport saw an increase in passengers compared to 2022 and even surpassed pre-pandemic levels.
The busiest month in 2023 was August, during which over seven million passengers traveled through the Netherlands’ five major airports. On the contrary, the day with the fewest passengers recorded was January 24, with only 113,000 passengers. However, the passenger traffic of these five airports has been continuously increasing since 2021.
Of all passengers who traveled to and from the Netherlands last year, over 37 million flew within the EU, while 15.3 million traveled to and from other countries in Europe, accounting for 73.4% of the total passengers. The highest number of passengers, 9.3 million, traveled to and from Spain, followed closely by 8.6 million who traveled to and from the United Kingdom. Additionally, Barcelona-El Prat airport in Spain had the highest number of passengers flying to and from airports in the Netherlands, at 1.8 million.
Looking back at historical data, the five main Netherlands airports welcomed the highest number of passengers in 2018 and 2019, with 79.6 million and 81.2 million passengers, respectively. However, in 2020, the number of passengers significantly decreased to 23.7 million due to the Covid-19 global pandemic.
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