Keeping the island’s air connectivity running during the autumn months has paid off, as October was the best month for Cyprus airports passenger traffic in 2021.
According to Hermes Airports, the Larnaca and Paphos airports operator, passenger arrivals and departures reached 951,820 last month.
The next best month on record this year was August, with 867,097 arrivals and departures.
In October, 619,501 passengers passed through the gates of Larnaca airport, and another 332,319 arrived or departed from the smaller Paphos airport.
Passenger traffic for January-October 2021 was 4,285,974, double the 2,187,415 last year but short of the record 10,128,145 in 2019.
The best October was in 2019 when 1,196,518 passengers went through Cyprus airports.
Hermes Airports said: “This is a positive development, given that this year and the last, travel was generally in recession due to the pandemic and the measures introduced to curb it”.
Most of the tourist traffic came from the UK, Russia, Greece, Germany, and Poland.
Encouragingly, arrival data show a significant influx of passengers from the UK.
“Cyprus had seen a limited number of Britons arrive in the summer as until July there was still uncertainty as to whether the country would open its borders.”
Hermes also noted the increase in flight occupancy rate, which increased compared to August.
Cypriots also played their part in the increase in passenger traffic.
The airport operator recorded an upward trend in trips by residents abroad because of the long weekends due to public holidays in October.
According to Maria Kouroupi, Hermes’ senior marketing manager said, “these encouraging results for October, was the improvement of Cyprus’ epidemiological outlook earlier in the month”.
She said Cyprus upgraded from the high-risk red to the less risky orange category by the European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC), had played a significant role at the beginning of the month.
“Although our stay in the orange was short-lived, it nevertheless gave a boost to Cyprus’ image abroad,” said Kouroupi.
Cyprus returned to the ECDC red zone two weeks ago as COVID-19 cases rose.
Kouroupi, citing statistics from the European Travel Commission (ETC) indicating that two in three Europeans plan to travel within the next six months, argued the public urges to travel once more.
