Bucharest Airport passenger traffic in 2021 not likely to rise above half of that in 2019

The Airports Council International (ACI Europe) estimates the passenger traffic on Bucharest Airports somewhere around 7.5 million this year (half of that in 2019), but the pessimistic forecast is 5.5 million passengers, according to the new general manager of the Bucharest National Airports Company, Cosmin Pestesan, Agerpres reported.

The two airports of the capital city last year recorded air traffic of just over 4.46 million passengers, down 69.7% compared to 2019, while aircraft movements decreased by 53.5% to 67,696, announced the Bucharest Airports National Company (CNAB) at the end of January 2021.

Given that in the first two months of 2020 the passenger traffic values experienced a slight increase of 5.5% compared to 2019, the decrease over the other 10 months of the same year (during the pandemic) was deeper than 81%, with a minimum of 19,118 passengers and 1,136 aircraft movements in April, respectively a maximum of 426,081 passengers and 5,218 aircraft movements in August.

In related news, the head of CNAB mentioned that the works at secondary airport Baneasa that is currently being refurbished are 80% completed on the structural side, and the new Board of Directors is to come up with a plan and an operationalization strategy for this objective.

(Photo source: Facebook/Bucharest Airports)