The Azores recorded around 2.1 million passengers disembarking at airports in 2023, a record figure, 16% higher than the previous year, according to data released today by the Regional Statistics Service (SREA).
“In 2023, 295,520 more passengers disembarked than in the previous year, an annual variation of 16%,” reads the report on air passenger movements for the month of December, published on the SREA website.
In total, 2,137,980 passengers disembarked at the archipelago’s nine airports between January and December 2023, compared to 1,842,460 in the same period last year.
According to the data available on the SREA website, consulted by Lusa, this is the highest number of landings at airports in the Azores since records began in 1986.
According to the SREA, “in 2023, the number of disembarked passengers increased on all islands compared to the previous year”.
With more than half of the landings (1,219,946), São Miguel was the island that grew the most year-on-year (19.0%).
Pico (102,781) and Faial (144,272) registered increases of 15.9% and São Jorge of 14.9% (50,665).
Graciosa grew by 11.2% (34,653), Corvo by 11% (5,923) and Terceira by 10.8% (470,565).
The smallest increases were seen on the islands of Santa Maria, with 10.5% (60,049), and Flores, with 10.3% (49,126).
In December 2023 alone, 124,024 travelers landed at the region’s airports, 4.4% more than in the same month in 2022.
Only the islands of Terceira (-6.6%) and Corvo (-12.8%) recorded a drop in passengers in December.
Pico was the island with the highest positive month-on-month change (17.3%), followed by Faial (13.9%), Flores (13.4%) and Graciosa (12.9%).
Santa Maria (8.6%), São Miguel (7.3%) and São Jorge (6%) recorded smaller increases.
Passenger arrivals from international flights (11,484) increased the most in December (21.3%).
Inter-island flights also saw a year-on-year increase (8.2%) in disembarked travelers (51,530).
As for flights from the mainland and Madeira, although the number of arrivals in December (61,010) was higher than the other two categories, there was a drop of 1.1% compared to December 2022.
The total number of passengers boarded in December was 119,514, 5.9% more than in the same period of the previous year.
In terms of type of flight, there was a year-on-year increase of 30.7% in passengers boarding international flights (9,748), 7.4% in inter-island flights (51,551) and 1.4% in territorial flights (58,215).
