According to Statistics Austria, there was an increase in passenger traffic recorded on Austrian airports, which saw a total of 33.2 million people pass through their gates in 2023.

The same disclosed that this was a significant increase of 25.3% as compared to 2022. Meanwhile, there was a 1.7% increase in air cargo, as it rose to 218,522 tons.

Meanwhile, there was a 6.8% decline in airmail to 6,205 tons.

The numbers

Director General of Statistics Austria, Tobias Thomas, said that thanks to 33.2 million passengers in 2023 on Austrian airports, they had managed to reach almost 92% of the passengers recorded back in 2019.

This is the second-highest figure to have been recorded since they first started tracking data in 1955, which points towards a promising recovery for the aviation sector.

The data showed that there was a 25.3% increase recorded in passenger volume at the six airports in Austria, which is around 6.7 million passengers more than 2022.

This resulted in the number rising to 33.2 million passengers. In the first year after the COVID-19 pandemic, i.e. 2020, commercial aviation had declined to 9.3 million passengers.

However, an upward trend had then been seen in 2021 and it has continued in 2023 as well.

The trajectory

The Austrian aviation sector continued its recovery trajectory last year, as the passenger numbers rose to almost 91.6% of the levels recorded before the pandemic.

Data showed that they were just 3.0 million less than the numbers recorded in 2019 before the pandemic hit.

The total number of aircraft movements recorded stood at 259,000 at the Vienna, Salzburg, Linz, Klagenfurt, Innsbruck and Graz airports.

This was a total of 1.8% rise in both scheduled and non-scheduled traffic as compared to 2022. However, aircraft movements were still 19% lower than the numbers recorded in 2019.

More data

Additional data also shed some light on the passenger density, as 2023 saw almost 128.1 people recorded in every flight, which was a 7.2% rise from 2022.

Meanwhile in 2019, the average number of people per flight stood at 113.2, which made it a major increase of 13.2% in the average number of passengers transported.

In 2023, there were six main airports in Austria that recorded a rise in passenger traffic. There was a 24.7% increase at Vienna Airport, while Salzburg Airport recorded a rise of 31.3%.

Klagenfurt Airport, Linz Airport, Graz Airport and Innsbruck Airport all recorded an increase of 85.5%, 12.1%, 30.6% and 25.7%.

When these numbers are compared to those of 2019, Vienna Airport was able to reach 93% of the passenger numbers seen in 2019, while Salzburg Airport managed to reach 94% of its 2019 numbers.

Likewise, Innsbruck and Graz managed to reach 79% and 71% of the numbers in 2019. Meanwhile, Linz and Klagenfurt airports have relatively lower passenger volumes.

Therefore, they managed to reach about 53% and 73% of the passenger numbers they had recorded in 2019, respectively.