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Pilar Martínez
Malaga
Monday, 13 January 2025
Malaga Airport has closed 2024 as the best in its 105-year history. Data issued by Spanish airport operator Aena shows that, by December, the airport had almost reached 25 million passengers. Specifically, 24,923,774 passengers have passed through and 174,915 flights have landed and taken off on the runways.
These figures represent a growth of 11.5% and 8.2%, respectively. In other words, every day, an average of 68,284 passengers have been passing through the Malaga terminals and the control tower has been following the operations of 479 aircraft. To get an idea of this, it is sufficient to mention that last year this activity amounted to 61,217 passengers and 443 flights per day.
The figures confirm that operations at Malaga Airport are expanding above the average for the Aena network, which closed last year with 309,332,069 passengers, 9.2% more than in 2023, and managed 2,590,861 aircraft movements, 7.8% more than during the same period in 2022.
"This positive balance was established thanks to the good performance of both domestic and foreign traffic," said Aena, adding another milestone: the highest volume of managed baggage (outbound) in more than 105 years, with almost six million suitcases checked in at the facilities (5,998,006), with record highs every month of the year. The previous record was set in 2023, with 5,521,041 pieces of luggage handled.
In this unprecedented year, the international markets with the greatest demand were the British market, with 5,691,371 passengers, followed by Germany, with 1,967,294, the Netherlands, with 1,479,693, France, with 1,360,672, and Italy, with 1,289,204. However, the most dynamic markets were the ones of Czech Republic and Poland, with increases of 82.4% and 56.4%, respectively. The boost this past December was a key objective for the airport to get close to a total of 25 million passengers. Aena reports that 1,573,958 passengers passed through at the end of the year, 7.4% more than in December 2023.
A year of milestones
The year began with an increase of 20% compared to the start of 2023. From that moment onwards, a dizzying rate of growth that doubled the national average has been observed, which allowed Malaga to overtake Gran Canaria and become the third airport in Spain in terms of passenger volume. Previously, the Costa del Sol airport has been the fourth in rankings, with Gran Canaria ahead in the winter months and Palma de Mallorca in the summer season.
It is worth remembering that Malaga enjoyed a strong first quarter, achieving unprecedented figures by breaking the barrier of four million passengers for the first time ever in the January to March period, reaching 4.5 million passengers. In comparison, the most successful year until now was 2023, with a peak of 3.8 million passengers in the first quarter.
In May, the airport reached the lucrative momentum of an abundant August, which then, in June, resulted in the closing of a half year never seen before - a million and a half more passengers than in the same period the year before. For the first time, the level of eleven million passengers in six months was exceeding, even touching the 11.5 million (11,494,109) mark and 80,788 flights. Aena has highlighted the efficiency of Malaga's facilities, which have seen the volume of passengers and operations grow by 14.1% and 10%, respectively, compared to the same period last year.
In August, the airport turned another page in its history, marking down 2,652,017 passengers (almost 10% increase) and 18,083 flights, making it the best holiday month par excellence in its history. The record daily average of 85,548 passengers for the month was distributed over both domestic and foreign traffic, although the latter had a much greater weight. These numbers followed a July that saw record-breaking figures, surpassing the previous maximums for daily passengers and total operations, including both general and executive aviation, in its more than one hundred years of history. On Sunday 28 July, 93,255 passengers were recorded, and on July 14, there were 645 landings and take-offs.
To add to these historic figures and continue the growth trend, last November reached a new figure of 23,349,816 million passengers, which confirmed a cumulative growth in the first eleven months of the year - 11.8%. But if we look back five years, the potential and strong recovery of Malaga are even more evident, with an increase of almost 25% over the period.
It should be remembered that Malaga Airport closed 2023 with a record of 22.3 million passengers, 161,684 flights and the milestone of managing the highest volume of checked baggage, exceeding five and a half million suitcases. The data made clear the strength and potential of the destination, which was confirmed by the fact that the Malaga industry handled 12.5% more passengers than it did in 2019, which, until now, was the best year in its history, and 21.1% more than last year. This figure highlights the resurgence of tourism, which played a key role in closing a year that saw historic milestones. In the past twelve months, the airport surpassed 20 million travellers, - a figure that had not even been reached before the pandemic - ultimately surpassing 22 million.
Within Aena network as a whole, 2023 also closed by beating the levels reached in 2019 to exceed 283 million passengers, according to data released by the operator's manager. Specifically, a total of 283,195,399 passengers passed through the airports in 2023, 16% more than in 2022 and 2.9% more than in 2019, before the pandemic broke out, when a record 275.2 million travellers had been reached.
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