In February, national airports handled a total of 2.6 million passengers and accounted for the landing of 11,600 aircraft on commercial flights, figures that, according to provisional data released by the Instituto Statistics Portugal (INE), translate to significant increases compared to the second month of 2021, but without being sufficient to equal the values ​​recorded before the pandemic.

INE data show that, compared to February 2021, there was a 236.1% growth in the number of aircraft that landed at national airports, while the total number of passengers handled rose 877.9%, increases that were higher than those recorded in the previous month, when commercial aircraft landings had increased by 106.1% and passengers by 177.4%.

The growth calculated by INE was, however, insufficient to equal February 2020, even before the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic, since, compared to that pre-pandemic month, national airports still registered a decrease of 21.7% in the number of aircraft grounded and 30.5% in the number of passengers handled.

Of the total number of passengers disembarked at Portuguese airports in February, INE says that “82.2% corresponded to international traffic”, whereas in the same month of 2021, international traffic represented only 57.4% of the total.

Most international passengers came from airports on the continent.