Malaga Airport handles the third-highest number of passengers in Spain during first quarter of 2023

According to the latest data from Aena, Malaga Airport handled 3.7 million passengers in the first three months of 2023, the third-highest in Spain.

Spanish airport operator Aena published a statement today, Friday, April 14, revealing the number of passengers passing through its facilities during the first quarter of 2023. Malaga-Costa del Sol Airport ended the first three months with a remarkable 3.7 million passengers using the base in southern Spain.

That figure is 8.7 per cent more than in 2019 and 35.4 per cent more than last year. As a result, it placed third overall in Spain, ahead of other major tourist destinations such as Palma de Mallorca and Tenerife South.

In March alone, almost one and a half million passengers (1,475,066) and more than 10,900 flights were registered in Malaga. These were 9 per cent and 11.4 per cent higher, respectively, than those recorded in the same month of 2019, before the pandemic.

Aena network airports carried a total of 53.6 million passengers in the first quarter of the year. This was 41.6 per cent more than in the same period of 2022 and 1.6 per cent more than in the first three months of 2019, the airport manager said yesterday, Thursday 13.

Between January and March, 491,344 aircraft movements were recorded, 0.1 per cent more than in 2019. Also, 251,593 tonnes of cargo were transported, which is 0.5 per cent more than in the same period of 2019.

Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas airport recorded the highest number of passengers in the first three months of the year with 13.4 million passengers. That is an increase of 47.2 per cent on the same period in 2022 and practically equalling the figures for 2019.

It was followed by Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat airport. The Catalan facility registered 9.9 million passengers, 56.2 per cent more than in 2022, and 5.1 per cent below the pre-pandemic level.

Of the 1,475,066 passengers passing through Malaga Airport, 1,471,100 corresponded to commercial connections. A total of 1,156,918 out of that number related to travellers from abroad, an increase of 4.1 per cent on pre-covid levels.

In this international sphere, the United Kingdom accounted for 330,114 passengers, the Netherlands supplied 102,275, Germany (86,124), France (70,170) and Italy (65,729).

The remaining 314,182 commercial passengers travelled to or from a Spanish city to Malaga, which consolidated the strength of the domestic market by exceeding the records of 2019 by 32.1 per cent.

A similar trend occurred in aircraft movements, with a total of 10,908 flights, 11.4 per cent more than before the pandemic. Of this total, 7,670 were international operations, going up by 7 per cent, and 2,811 within Spain, a rise of 22.5 per cent.