The Spanish airports’ network has registered its busiest ever September, the volume of passengers having increased by over 5% to almost 21 million, of which 15.1 million were international (4.4% more than in September 2014) and 5.8 million were domestic, a rise of 6.4%.
The airports of Son Sant Joan (Palma) and Ibiza both had record Septembers, with Palma having registered 3.1 million passengers, a rise of 1.8%, and a 1.6% increase in flights - to 21,218. Madrid-Barajas had the most passengers in September, its 4.3 million having represented an increase of 11.7%. Barcelona-El Prat, second behind Madrid and one place above Palma, had 3.97 million. Among other airports, September saw an increase of 3.6% to 1.5 million passengers at Malaga and a rise of 0.9% to 980,867 passengers at Ibiza.
Alicante-Elche experienced a 4.6% increase, while Valencia had the highest percentage rise for an airport in a “sun-and-beach” region, one of almost 10%. Smaller airports not at all associated with this type of tourism had some hefty increases in volume, e.g. plus 106% at Leon and 55% at Salamanca. For the year up to the end of September, Madrid increased its number of international passengers by over 14% to 25.4 million and domestic by 6.4% to 9.7 million.
Barcelona recorded a total of 30.6 million, a rise of almost 5%, with Palma again in third place with 19.9 million passengers for the nine months from January, an increase of 2.1%.