We’ve seen some interesting trends in air travel through Portugal’s airports over the past year. According to the latest data from the National Statistics Institute (INE), the United Kingdom saw increases in both disembarked passengers (+2.9%) and embarked passengers (+2.5%) compared to the same period in 2024. France and Spain remained the second and third-largest markets for origin and destination.
Looking at the major Portuguese airports, Lisbon handled about half of all passenger traffic in the first half of the year, with 17.2 million passengers, a 3% increase over 2024. Faro Airport also saw solid growth, up 7% to 4.6 million passengers (13.4% of the total). And Porto Airport accounted for 22.9% of passengers, growing by 5.5% to 7.9 million.
The overall air cargo and mail movement through Portuguese airports grew 2.6% in the first half. Zooming in on June specifically, the national airports saw 7.1 million passengers and 21.1 thousand tons of cargo and mail, increases of 5.9% and 4% respectively compared to June 2024.
In June, Portugal averaged over 118,000 disembarking passengers per day, up from around 113,000 the prior June. The vast majority, 82%, were international passengers, with 2.9 million disembarking (+5.3%). Most of these international visitors, 68.1%, were from Europe, an increase of 4.6% from the prior June. The Americas were the second-largest origin market, accounting for 9.7% of disembarking passengers (+8.6%).
Overall, the data paints a picture of steady growth in Portugal’s air travel market, especially when it comes to international visitors from Europe and the Americas. These consistent year-over-year increases suggest Portugal remains a popular destination for travelers.
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