Prague Airport handled almost 700,000 people in August, a year-on-year increase of 102 percent

In August, Prague Airport handled almost 700,000 passengers, which is 102 percent more than in the previous year. Compared to the pre-crisis period, however, it is a decline of 65 percent. Most flights to Greece, the most popular destination was the Bulgarian Burgas. This was stated today by Prague Airport. In the summer, Czechs headed mainly to traditional summer holiday destinations. At present, it flies from Prague to more than a hundred places.

"In August, our forecasts of strong outbound tourism were confirmed. In connection with the gradual relaxation of measures, there was also a slight recovery in tourism from selected countries such as Israel or the United States," said Jaroslav Filip, Director of Aviation at Prague Airport.

During August, more than 7,500 takeoffs and landings took place at Prague Airport, which represents an increase of 39 percent compared to last August. Most passengers went from Prague to Burgas in August, where 46,000 passengers flew. There were also flights to Amsterdam and Rhodes. Of the countries, Greece was the busiest, followed by Italy and Spain.

Carriers are gradually renewing the lines in September as well. For example, SAS renews its route to Stockholm, SkyUp Airlines will offer a new route to Kiev, Transavia France has resumed flights to Paris and Eurowings to Hamburg. Aeroflot and Czech Airlines have already increased the number of connections on the Prague-Moscow route, and it is possible to fly to St. Petersburg more often with Rossiya Airlines. The carrier Smartwings to St. Petersburg has now renewed its connection.

However, despite the latest increase, air traffic remains well below pre-coronavirus pandemic numbers. Due to the coronavirus crisis last year, Prague Airport lost 79 percent of passengers compared to 2019 after years of record passenger numbers. It handled a total of 3.66 million, the lowest in 25 years. The new head of the airport, Jiří Pos, recently stated that, according to current forecasts, the airport should handle around four million passengers this year. As last year, the company will probably end up in a loss of hundreds of millions of crowns.

Source: CTK