The number of seats airlines offer to passengers travelling to Spain over the summer season is set to be 4.4% higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic brought global travel to a halt in 2019, Spanish airport operator Aena said on Thursday.
Aena said the airlines in its network have scheduled 221.8 million seats and nearly 1.3 million commercial operations for summer, with the capital’s Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas Airport offering the most seats at more than 44.5 million.
“Programming in the summer season with the UK and Germany has almost recovered to the 2019 level, with a 96% recovery,” Aena added in a statement. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) this month said that air travel was “off to a very healthy start” in 2023 after the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions in China. Aena’s passenger traffic in February was 2.2% higher than in 2019, with almost 17 million travellers.