Girona airport closed the year with 1,586,463 passengers, 20.7% more than in 2022. 99.6% were commercial passengers. These are figures, in any case, lower than those recorded in 2019, before the pandemic, when the Vilobí d’Onyar airport closed with 1.9 million tourists.
Although the Vilobí d’Onyar airfield returned to the path of growth in 2022, after the setback caused in air traffic due to Covid, it is still far from the data recorded before the outbreak of the coronavirus.
Of the total number of travelers in 2023, 1,580,410 were commercial travelers, a figure that represents an increase of 20.6% compared to 2022. The last month of the year closed with 32,354 travelers, 130% more than in the same period from the previous year.
The number of passengers is higher than that reached a year ago, when the statistics closed with nearly 1.3 million passengers; although operations (takeoffs and landings) have been reduced by 4%.
In total, a total of 20,407 aircraft movements have been recorded during 2023. Fewer operations but more passengers would explain that aircraft occupancy has been, in general, high.
The data is close to what the Girona Provincial Council forecast last October. During the presentation of Ryanair’s activity at the Vilobí d’Onyar airport – a hegemonic company – the president of the Patronat Costa Brava-Girona, Miquel Noguer, predicted that the year could close with 1.6 million passengers.
The data will presumably be better in 2024. This winter Ryanair flies to nine destinations, five more cities than a year ago. Ryanair spokesperson in Spain, Portugal, France and Morocco, Elena Cabrera, predicted growth this winter in Girona of 70%.
In the rearview mirror, the 5.5 million passengers that the Girona-Costa Brava airport registered in 2008, the record number in the history of the aerodrome. Everything began to change in 2010 with the landing of Ryanair in El Prat.
On the horizon, the high-speed AVE station that will be located at the airport. A terminal, which according to forecasts by the Ministry of Transport, could be used by about three million passengers annually and become a reality in 2026.
Regarding cargo, in 2023 308 tons of merchandise have been transported, 88.6% more than in 2022.
Girona is the second airport in the Aena network in terms of number of travelers in Catalonia after El Prat in Barcelona, which closed with 49.9 million passengers in 318,957 operations.
Reus airport ended the year with just over a million travelers. Specifically, it has registered 1,045,419 passengers in 20,512 operations. Finally, Sabadell airport has received some 6,200 passengers in 48,124 takeoffs and landings.