More passengers in Leipzig and Dresden

Passenger numbers at Leipzig/Halle and Dresden airports are on the up, but have not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels. In the first three quarters of this year, passenger traffic at the two airports grew by around 29 percent compared with the same period last year, Mitteldeutsche Flughafen AG announced on Thursday. A total of about 2.3 million passengers took off by the end of September, including 1.6 million from Leipzig/Halle and about 705,000 from Dresden.

Leipzig/Halle Airport benefited above all from the renewed desire for vacation travel, it said. Flights to destinations around the Mediterranean, Red and Black Seas and the Atlantic had been in high demand, with around three-quarters of all passengers taking advantage of these offers. Most of these were charter flights on package tours, a company spokesman said. Passenger numbers at the airport rose by almost 40 percent in the same period.

Dresden Airport was reported to have once again been used more as a feeder to the international hubs of Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Zurich, through which it is connected to the global network of major airlines such as Lufthansa, KLM and Swiss. Passenger numbers at Dresden increased by nearly 12 percent in the first nine months of this year compared with the same period last year.

Overall, pre-pandemic levels have not yet been regained, the company spokesman said. He said this was particularly noticeable on domestic routes, where some connections had been cancelled. The situation is similar at other German airports, he added.

According to figures presented Thursday by the ADV airports association, domestic traffic grew 27.3 percent year-on-year. A total of 149 million boardings and departures were recorded at German airports for domestic, European and long-haul flights. While that was up 21.5 percent from the previous year, it fell 22.4 percent short of pre-Corona figures.