El Prat Airport records second-largest passenger grow in Europe

The number of passengers whom passed through Barcelona El Prat airport in the first six months of 2016 grew by 12.7% in comparison to the same period last year. This figure means the Catalan infrastructure was the second airport amongst the medium and big airports in Europe in terms of passenger growth, that is to say, amongst those which are used by 25 million passengers per year. Only Dublin registered higher growth, 13.4%. However, in June, El Prat was the European airport which saw the highest increase in the number of passengers and saw 10% growth, according to data released by the Airports Council International (ACI). Moreover, the Barcelona airport’s pace of growth was double that of the European airportaverage. Adding the figures registered in July, 25,028,393 people used El Prat’s facilities in the first seven months of the year.

ACI’s report also showed that the main big airports in group 1, which includes those airports with more than 25 million passengers per year, have stalled. Heathrow, in London, Charles de Gaulle in Paris and Frankfurt didn’t grow in comparison to last year. According to ACI, only 2 airports in this group of 5 grew, they are Schiphol in Amsterdam and Barajas, in Madrid. However, in terms of passengers growth, they are both below El Prat. Schiphol registered a 9.9% increase and Barajas an increase of 8.6%, while the number of passengers whom passed through Barcelona El Prat airport in the first six months of 2016 grew by 12.7%.

More than 4.5 million passengers passed through El Prat in July
The most recent figures, corresponding to July, show that 4,668,327 passengers passed through Barcelona El Prat airport over the course of the month, 9.6% more than in the same month in 2015, according to the Spanish Airport Authority (AENA). 75.5% of them, that is to say, 3.523 million, were international flight passengers, which represents 10.4% more than in July 2015. The number of passengers on domestic flights grew by 7.2% and that of intercontinental operations also registered an important increase. In particular, those which grew the most were flights to and from Latin America (38.8%) followed by Africa (25.5%) and North America (24.3%). Asia (12.75%) and the Middle East (10%) were some distance behind.

Regarding the number of operations registered at El Prat this July, this was 30,929; 5% more than in the same month last year. In total, the number of movements from January to July reached 117,326, which represents 6.5% more than in the same period last year.

In relation to freight traffic, July registered 10,413 tonnes, 0.2% higher than in July 2015. In the first seven months of 2016, freight traffic grew by 12%.