Positive increase of air traffic in January, but still far from normal

10 Feb 2023 11:55 CET

3,198,152 million passengers used Avinor’s airports in January. This was an
increase of 70 per cent compared to January 2022. Although there was an increase
in passenger figures compared to January 2022, the figures are 16 per cent lower
than January 2019.*

“Air traffic in January has been in line with our forecasts from the autumn. Air
traffic levels from December continued into January. It is expected that the
rest of the year will also remain below 2019 levels,” says Avinor’s VP Traffic
Development, Gaute Skallerud Riise.

“The first quarter of 2022 was marked by Omicron, which explains the huge growth
at the start of the year. Although developments have been stable in recent
months, aviation remains affected by a difficult world economy and geopolitical
situation. It is particularly the number of international passengers that is
drawing the total traffic numbers for January down. But although international
traffic is generally lower, there are some markets making a positive impact. In
Tromsø, the number of international passengers is back at 2019 levels, due to
great interest in the northern lights and Arctic experiences from other parts of
the world,” Riise concludes

Aircraft movements
There were 53,143 commercial aircraft movements in January 2023. This is an
increase of 18 per cent from January 2022. Compared to January 2019, there has
been a drop in the number of aircraft movements of 12 per cent.

International traffic
1,138,624 passengers have travelled between Avinor’s airports and international
destinations in January. In the same month last year, there were 568,687
international passengers. This means that international traffic has doubled
compared to last year when aviation was still impacted by the pandemic and
travel restrictions. Compared to 2019, the decline in international traffic is
20 per cent.

Domestic traffic
There were 2,017,790 passengers on domestic flights in January this year. This
is an increase of 59 per cent from January last year.
Compared to January 2019, there has been a decline of 14 per cent.

*Why compare to 2019?
2020 and 2021 were severely affected by travel bans, restrictions and illness.
2019 was the last year without the pandemic or the war in Ukraine, and was a
‘normal year’ in terms of travel.

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Definitions in the report

Round trips
Most flights are round trips, regardless of whether they are direct or require a
change of aircraft one or more times. When counting round trips, one doesn’t
consider any aircraft changes or how many airports one has stopped at on the
trip.

Terminal passengers
This method of counting is the same at all airports. Terminal passengers are the
number of passengers to and from an airport. All passengers are counted,
regardless of whether they are boarding the plane (from land side) at the
airport or are arriving by aircraft from another airport. If a passenger arrives
by aircraft and travels onward by aircraft, they are counted twice at the
airport. Passengers who arrive by aircraft but don’t enter the airport, i.e.
wait on the aircraft in transit, are not counted as terminal passengers.

URL to statistics:
https://avinor.no/konsern/om-oss/trafikkstatistikk/trafikkstatistikk

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