Eindhoven Airport, together with Rotterdam The Hague Airport, is the only Dutch airport that processed more passengers last year than in 2022 and in 2019, before the corona crisis. With almost 6.9 million airline passengers, Eindhoven is the second largest airport in the Netherlands for passenger transport. 2.2 million people flew to and from Rotterdam.
In 2023, a total of more than 71 million airline passengers traveled to and from the five airports in the Netherlands. That is more than sixteen percent more than in 2022, but still less than before the corona pandemic, reports the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). In 2019, the year before the pandemic, the number of travelers was still over 81 million.
Average occupancy rate increased
In total there were almost 506,000 commercial flights, nine percent more than a year earlier. The average occupancy rate also increased. In 2023, an average of 79 out of every hundred aircraft seats were occupied on passenger flights, compared to 76 a year earlier. In 2019 there were 81.
Despite the increase, the pre-corona crisis level has not yet been reached at all airports. For example, Schiphol handled almost 442,000 flights and almost 62 million passengers in 2023. This was almost eighteen percent more passengers than in 2022, but about fourteen percent less than in 2019.
Spain and the United Kingdom
More than half of the passengers traveled within Europe, mainly to Spain and the United Kingdom. Outside Europe, the United States was the most popular. The most popular connection to and from a Dutch airport was again between the Netherlands and Barcelona.