Avinor and Swedavia have presented figures for the year 2021 and it is a small but extremely important increase in the number of travelers that they can both present.
In Sweden for the full year 2021, the number of travelers amounted to almost 12 million, a decrease of just over 70 percent compared to traveler levels before the pandemic in 2019. 2021 was thus the second year in a row with a strong pandemic effect on air travel, which despite the recovery in the autumn, remained at levels comparable to air travel in the early 1980s. Since the beginning of the pandemic, air travel at Swedavia’s airports has now decreased by about 58 million passengers. Compared with the previous year, which was unaffected by the pandemic during the first months of the year, the number of travelers increased by 16 percent in 2021.
In Norway, Avinor can present that a total of 22.4 million passengers traveled through Avinor’s airports in 2021. This is a growth of 10 percent compared with 2020. Measured against 2019, the decline in total passenger traffic for 2021 is 59 percent.
Passenger Oslo Gardemoen Airport 2021: 9,4 million (+0,4 million compared to 2020)
Passenger Stockholm Arlanda Airport 2021: 7,5 million (+1 million compared to 2020)
– There are still very demanding times for aviation, with a lot of uncertainty about how the pandemic will develop further. Although we see an increase in the number of passengers and air movements, overall we have for 2021 a sharp decline in both traffic revenues and commercial revenues as a result of fewer passengers and air movements says CEO of Avinor, Abraham Foss.
– During the summer and autumn seasons, we saw an increase in travel activity, as a result of increased vaccination rates and easing of travel restrictions. We saw this fall towards Christmas when new restrictions were introduced as a result of the omicron eruption, says Foss.
We receive similar statements from Sweden and Swedavia’s CEO.
– The development during the end of 2021 was the strongest we have seen since the outbreak of the pandemic, even though the recovery slowed down somewhat in December due to the pandemic situation and new restrictions in Sweden and the rest of the world, says Jonas Abrahamsson, Swedavia’s President, and CEO.
