The best year, with an annual increase of 8.6%, was 2023 for the 14 regional airports managed by Fraport Greece, which received almost 34 million passengers, with the vast majority, 13 of the 14 destinations, showing an increase compared to 2022, the next best year.
The only loser in total passenger traffic, one of the country's two premium destinations, Mykonos, which, with a total of 1.66 million passengers, closed marginally lower, by -1.7%, compared to 2022 due to the drop in foreign traffic.
The second premium Greek destination of the Cyclades, Santorini, with over 2.77 million passengers in 2023, closed with a marginal increase, at +1.1% due to the large double-digit increase in domestic traffic, but not in international traffic (1.5 million passengers), which closed down by almost 10%.
For December alone, the total passenger traffic exceeded 754,000 (+12.7% compared to 2022), with the lion's share - as is reasonable due to the high seasonality of Greek tourism - collected by Thessaloniki with over 476,000 passengers.
The winners of 2023
In total, passenger traffic at the 14 regional airports (Aktio, Chania, Corfu, Kavala, Kefalonia, Thessaloniki, Zakynthos, Kos, Mytilini, Mykonos, Rhodes, Samos, Santorini, Skiathos) exceeded 33.87 million passengers for the whole of 2023.
It increased by 8.6% compared to the 31.2 million passengers of the previous year, while compared to the 30.16 million passengers of 2019, before the pandemic, the increase is +12.3%.
The largest of the regional airports, Thessaloniki, with over 7 million passengers, finally achieved full recovery from pre-pandemic numbers last year, with an increase of almost 2% compared to 2019. With a double-digit increase of +18.7% compared to 2022, it is one of the year's best performances among all 14 regional airports.
Of the large island destinations, Rhodes, with the devastating fires at the "heart" of last summer, closed with over 6.14 million passengers and an increase of 4.9%. The biggest annual increase of 8.5% was recorded by Corfu, with 4.07 million passengers last year, while of all the 14 regional airports, Kavala, one of the smallest regional airports, had the highest growth rate of 21%, with only 304,000 passengers in the whole of last year.
The "champion" in terms of foreign traffic last year is Rhodes, with more than 5.29 million passengers (+2.8% annual increase), being one of the country's seasonal island destinations starting earlier in the summer.
Thessaloniki recorded an impressive 18.8% increase in international traffic, reaching 4.75 million passengers, with the airport attracting more direct flights with foreign airports.
In the Ionian Sea, Corfu, with over 3.69 million passengers, recorded an annual increase of 8.6%, while in another leading destination such as Chania, from last year's 3.65 million total passenger traffic (+10 .9%), the 2.82 million concern the foreign network.
READ MORE: Greece and Rhodes topped UK travel searches in 2023.
