Greece is Europe’s champion in increasing flights compared to pre-pandemic levels

Greece emerged as the “champion” throughout the EU in terms of the increase in commercial flights in September 2023 compared to the number of flights in 2019. The increase rate recorded by Greece amounted to 10.9%, followed by Portugal with 9.0% and further back Cyprus with 5.9%.

Looking at the data of the countries for September 2023, only 6 countries have exceeded the number of flights they had recorded in the corresponding period of 2019. It is thus confirmed that our country has the fastest recovery of flights and the conquest of traffic levels above and from pre-pandemic levels.

7.9% increase at EU level

Based on data released by Eurostat, in September 2023, there were 605,806 commercial flights in the EU, an increase of 7.9% compared to the number of flights in September 2022. However, the figure remained at 8.9 % lower than the number of flights for the same month in 2019.

The same trend was visible throughout June – August. All months saw a significant increase compared to 2022 – June 6.9%, July 7.4% and August 6.6%, but the figures were still lower than in 2019: June (-10.4%), July (-9.0%) ) and August (-8.5%).

Looking at the countries’ data for September 2023, in relation to the number of their flights from 2019, apart from Greece, Portugal and Cyprus, the other countries with flight growth were Croatia (+2.6%), Ireland (+1, 4%) and Malta (+0.7%).

The biggest recovery to better levels since 2019, on a pan-European level, was recorded by Iceland – which does not belong to the EU – with an increase of around 20%.

In contrast, Latvia (-30.4%), Finland (-30.2%), Estonia (-25.4%), Sweden (-24.1%) and Slovenia (-22.9% ) are far from the 2019 figures.