Lisbon, Feb. 13, 2025 (Lusa) - The number of passengers handled at Portuguese airports is expected to have increased by 4.3% in 2024, to 70.4 million, according to preliminary figures from the National Statistics Institute (INE) released on Thursday.

Last year's growth was significantly lower than the 18.9% year-on-year increase recorded in 2023.

Last year, 245,900 aircraft landed at Portuguese airports on commercial flights, which represents an increase of 0.9% (it had grown by 12% in 2023).

The movement of cargo and mail increased by 14.2% compared to the previous year (+0.1% in 2023), reaching 254,800 tonnes.

Lisbon airport handled 49.8% of all passengers (35.1 million), up 4.3% on 2023, while Porto accounted for 22.6% of all passengers handled (15.9 million; +4.8%) and Faro saw a 2% increase in passenger movements, totalling 9.8 million.

In 2024, the top five countries of origin and destination for flights remained the same, with the United Kingdom in first place, recording growth of 1.4% in the number of passengers disembarked and 1.3% in the number of passengers embarked, followed by France, despite recording decreases of 3.3% in the number of passengers disembarked and 3.6% in the number of passengers embarked.

Spain, Germany and Italy remained in third, fourth and fifth place respectively.

An analysis of the month of December alone showed that Portuguese airports handled 4.7 million passengers and 22,200 tonnes of cargo and mail, corresponding to increases of 3.9% and 9.6%, respectively, compared to December of the previous year.

"Since the beginning of 2024, there have been historic highs in the monthly passenger figures at national airports," said INE, pointing out that in the last month of the year, there was an average daily disembarkation of around 78,000 passengers, 2.8% more than in December 2023 (75,900).

MPE/AYLS // AYLS

Lusa