More than 70 million passengers flew to and from the five major airports in the Netherlands last year. This is evident from figures published on Tuesday by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). The number of air passengers has therefore increased further, but has not yet returned to pre-corona crisis levels.
Part of the growth will come from the fact that some corona measures were still in force at the beginning of 2022. The first quarter of 2023 saw almost 40 percent more air travelers than the same quarter a year earlier. However, passenger numbers have also grown in the other quarters. In the third quarter, always the busiest of the year, 20.8 million people flew to and from the Netherlands, 11 percent more than in 2022.
As in 2022, Barcelona airport was the destination or origin of most air passengers going to or from the Netherlands. London was more popular overall, but that city has several large airports. According to Statistics Netherlands, more than half of the passengers traveled within the European Union, and more than a fifth flew to and from other European countries.
If all 70 million passengers flew to and from Barcelona, the increase in passenger numbers equates to an increase of more than one million tons of CO₂. This is evident from an estimate based on figures from International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). In 2022, according to the Dutch airlines CBS 9.5 megatonnes, 6 percent of the national volume total of that year.