Portugal's Q1 airport traffic tops pre-pandemic levels

Passenger traffic at Portugal’s airports soared 54% in the first quarter from a year earlier and beat pre-pandemic levels, despite strikes and staff shortages at some European terminals, official data showed on Friday. The National Statistics Institute said around 12.9m passengers transited through the 20 Portuguese airports between January and March, compared with 11.2m in the same period in 2019, a year before the COVID-19 pandemic crippled global travel. The number of foreign tourists visiting Portugal surpassed 2.8m from January through March, making it the strongest Q1 on record, the INE said last month. Portugal’s airports operator ANA, owned by France’s Vinci , runs 10 of the country’s main airports, including those in Lisbon and Porto, as well as in the tourist regions of the Algarve and the island of Madeira. The INE said Lisbon airport handled 7.1m passengers in the quarter, 57.6% up from a year ago, representing more than half of all passengers passing through Portuguese terminals. France is the main country of origin and destination of passengers at Portuguese airports, followed by Britain and Spain, the INE said. Many European carriers remain wary of potential strikes, particularly by air traffic controllers in France, as they fear a repeat of the disruptions travellers faced last summer.<br/>