M. R. Štefánik Airport in Bratislava handled 1.76 million passengers in 2016. Compared with the previous year this means an increase of 12.3 percent or 192,497 people.
“This is a record number [of passengers] over the past eight years,” said the airport’s general director Ivan Trhlík as cited in the press release. “Moreover, the number of passengers went up every month in 2016, which is another record.”
The airport registered the highest number of travelers in 2008 – almost 2.22 million.
Trhlík believes that the figures for 2016 could have been significantly higher if the geopolitical situation had not been affected by the omnipresent threat of terrorist attack, discouraging many people from travelling on holiday to traditional destinations.
The director of Bratislava airport is particularly pleased that the biggest increase was registered in scheduled air transport, up 24 percent compared with 2015 which shows that the network of regular air connections is developing. Their number finally returned to the historical maximum from 2008.
A total of 25,690 landings and departures took place at the airport last year, up by 4 percent when compared to 2015.
The volume of cargo processed by the airport increased by 9 percent in 2016 when compared to 2015.
The most desired destination for travelers from Bratislava has for several years been London-Stansted, serviced by Ryanair airlines. It was followed by Dublin, Berlin and Milano-Bergamo, also operated by Ryanair. The Moscow-Vnukovo route made it among the top five destinations as well in 2016. This line is operated by Pobeda, the airport’s spokeswoman Veronika Ševčíková specified.
The Ryanair airline was also the biggest carrier at Bratislava airport in 2016 accomodating more than 1.16 million passengers. It was followed by Travel Service (326,178) and Pobeda (70,930).
