Ranking of airlines by passenger transport at Barcelona Airport

Barcelona Airport was close to 53 million passengers in 2019, a record figure that consolidated it as the second largest Spanish airport, behind Madrid, which had 61.7 million passengers. None of these figures can be repeated this year as a consequence of the crisis caused by Covid-19, which has sunk global air traffic.

In 2019 as a whole, the Barcelona airport managed to increase passenger traffic by 5%, while the increase in the number of flights or operations was 2.7%. The rise registered by cargo traffic was lower (+2.2%), which caused Barcelona to drop to third place in the ranking after being overtaken by Zaragoza Airport, which rose as the second in Spain in cargo traffic (behind Madrid) thanks to the logistics activity of the Inditex group, which now prioritizes its operations in this infrastructure.

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And what has happened in 2020? Between January and August, only 10.29 million passengers passed through Barcelona-El Prat Airport, 71.1% less than in the same period of the previous year, when 35.59 million people were counted. The viral pandemic has severely punished traffic, which has also plummeted in other major enclaves such as Madrid (-66.6%), Palma de Mallorca (-77%) and Malaga (-70%). Thus, an end has been put to a dynamic of sustained growth in recent years. Specifically, between January and August, Barcelona registered traffic increases of 7.9%, 5.5% and 5.2% in 2017, 2018 and 2019, respectively.

In August, for example, the month par excellence for Spanish holidays, only 1.1 million passengers passed through El Prat, nothing like the 5.4 million tourists in 2019, a decrease of 79.5% that has resulted in striking images of the airport completely empty, almost ghostly. The worst month has been, however, April, with only 25,000 travelers as a consequence of the confinement. Before mobility restrictions began, in January and February, traffic exceeded three million people per month.

During the first eight months of the year, Vueling has remained the leading airline at Barcelona-Josep Tarradellas Airport. Only 4 million people have landed or taken off from the Catalan capital with its planes, so this year it will be very far from the record of 20.38 million passengers achieved in 2019. In August, it transported just over 1.2 million tourists, compared to more than 2.1 million in the same month of 2019.

In second position in the ranking, but very far from Vueling, is Ryanair, which during the months of the pandemic has transported 1.78 million passengers. This year it will also be very far from the figures reached in 2019: 7.8 million from its El Prat base. Behind Vueling and Ryanair are Easyjet, Iberia, Air Europa, Lufthansa and the Hungarian Wizz Air, according to data provided by Aena, the operator of the Spanish airport network.