The latest figures prove that Poland’s aviation market has largely recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the ULC, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
From January 1 to June 30, 2023, Polish airports handled 23.2 million passengers, a 40-percent rise on the first half of 2022 and a 4-percent rise on the first half of 2019, according to officials.
The biggest number of passengers, 8.3 million, was serviced by Warsaw's Chopin Airport.
This represented a rise of 2.5 million compared with the first six months of 2022, the ULC said.
Meanwhile, Kraków-Balice Airport in southern Poland came second, with 4.4 million passengers serviced in the first half of 2023, while Gdańsk Airport on the Baltic coast was ranked third after handling 2.6 million passengers during this period, the PAP news agency reported.
Of the 23.2 million passengers handled by Poland’s airports in the first half of this year, 21.4 million flew on international flights, a 39.7-percent rise on the first half of 2022 and a 4.6-percent increase on the first half of 2019.
Meanwhile, 1.8 million passengers used domestic flights, 42.4 percent more than in the first half of 2022, and 0.5 percent more than in the first six months of 2019, according to the ULC.
In all, Polish airports serviced 172,800 flight operations between January 1 and June 30, 2023, an 8-percent drop on the first half of 2019 and a 19-percent rise on the first half of 2022, officials said.
Ireland's Ryanair carried the biggest number of passengers among those who used Polish airports in the first half of 2023, at 7.6 million, followed by Poland’s national airline LOT with 5.3 million, and Hungary’s Wizz Air with 4.7 million, the PAP news agency reported.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, ULC