Flights increase compared to pre-pandemic levels

Cyprus was one of five member states where commercial flights recovered as well as increased in March 2023 compared with March 2019 and pre pandemic levels according to updated data released by Eurostat, the statistical service of the EU. Cyprus also recorded the third largest increase in flights compared to March 2022 and the fourth largest increase compare to February 2023.

At the EU level in March 2023, commercial flights in the EU increased by 15.4% compared with March 2022. The number of flight remained lower than pre-pandemic levels (-15.3% compared to March 2019), but increased by 16.7% compared with February 2023.

More specifically, Cyprus recorded a total of 4,720 flights in March 2023, which corresponds to a 6.9% increase compared to March 2019.

An increase was observed in March, compared to March 2019, in Portugal (+10.7%), Croatia (+10.5%), Greece (+2.1%) and Bulgaria (+0.5%).

All other member states continued recording a reduced number of flights compared to March 2019. The largest decreases are observed in Slovenia (-43.2%), Latvia (-29.0%) and Germany (-28.2%).

The number of flights for Cyprus also increased by 29.5% last March compared with March 2022, following shortly after Sweden (+31.4%) and Bulgaria (+31.0%) and followed by Austria (+28.8%) and Slovenia (+28.3%).

All member states of the EU recorded increase traffic compared with last year, with the lowest increases being seen in Belgium (+4.3%), Estonia (+7.1%) and Lithuania (+8.0%).

All member states also saw an increase on a monthly basis, compared with February 2023. Flights increased by 26.2% in Cyprus, following Croatia (+31.7%), Slovenia (+28.4%) and Czechia (26.8%), and followed by Malta (+25.9%).

The lowest increases on a monthly basis were recorded in Finland (+9.6%), France (+9.8%) and Lithuania (+14.6%).