Barcelona-El Prat Josep Tarradellas Airport is progressively recovering commercial activity since the beginning of the year. If it was recently known that during last February the number of passengers approached the traffic registered in the same month of 2020 ---1.98 million passengers, 39.3% less---, this Wednesday the airlines have announced their forecasts for the upcoming summer season.
Airlines are confident in the recovery of tourism and the flight schedule they have designed for this summer season will exceed pre-pandemic levels, with a seat offer 1.6% higher for Spain as a whole than that of summer 2019: 215.6 million seats, between the end of this March and the end of next October.
El Prat Airport takes advantage and gets the second best figure for flights that will operate from the Catalan capital, with an offer of about 36.2 million seats, which would imply recovering 90% of travelers from summer 2019. The figure rises to 38.72 million adding Girona-Costa Brava airports, with a number of seats of 1.47 million ---77% compared to 2019--- and Reus Airport, which expects to register 1.05 million seats ---representing 93% recovery---.
Also noteworthy is the expected growth in the Balearic Islands airports: Palma Airport, with an 11% increase in scheduled seats (31.2 million); Ibiza, with 11% (9.3 million); and Menorca with 40% (5.1 million seats).
The Aena network manager has released these data, not without pointing out that the geopolitical situation generates many uncertainties regarding the expected demand. "The degree of uncertainty remains high due to factors such as the evolution of the pandemic, the conflict in Ukraine or the rise in fuel prices," says the airport manager and reminds that the offer may undergo modifications depending on the decisions made by the companies. Regarding the impact of the war conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Aena clarifies that the flight schedule with these two countries has not been included, which would represent around 1% of the total seats.
More domestic than international offer
From Spain, the programming of seats decreases for the international market, which will fall by 1% this season, with more than 146.4 million available seats. The countries where airlines have offered a greater number of seats for travelers are the United Kingdom, with 35 million (with a decrease of 3% compared to 2019); Germany, with 21.6 million (6% less); and Italy, with 13 million seats offered (with an increase of 5%).
Meanwhile, the number of seats in the domestic market is growing significantly. It increases by 7%, with 69.3 million seats destined for Spanish airports.
Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport is positioned as the airport terminal with the largest offer of seats, 42.6 million. For their part, the largest increases in seats programmed by airlines are registered in the Canary Islands airports, with 9% more than in 2019, and Palma, with an increase of 11%, according to Aena data.