A total of 384,963 passengers passed through Dortmund Airport during the six-week summer holidays in NRW. This is a 16.3 per cent increase year-over-year. ‘Even though Dortmund Airport was used by more passengers than in the past ten years during the 2018 summer holidays, the number of passengers increased significantly again this year’, says Guido Miletic, Head of Marketing & Sales at Dortmund Airport.
Among other things, Miletic ascribes this development to the further expansion of the airport’s offer for tourists: ‘By offering Palanga in Lithuania, Ohrid in Northern Macedonia and the island of Usedom three new destinations were added this year, all of which are quite popular with holidaymakers and were in high demand throughout the summer holidays.’ The increase in passenger numbers attests to the attractive and wide range of short- and medium-haul flights to Central, Eastern and Southern Europe from the Ruhr Area Airport, Miletic continued.
While the new destinations attracted additional passengers, most travellers chose the more established holiday spots: The Spanish holiday island Mallorca was the most popular destination during the summer holidays (37,204 passengers). The runner-ups were Katowice (31,615 passengers) and London (Luton and Stansted; 26,907 passengers) on the busiest routes. The airport has also recorded growth in traditional holiday destinations. The connection to Mallorca alone attracted 20.5 per cent more passengers this year than in the same period last year. ‘A higher capacity utilisation on existing routes and frequency increases also contributed to the holiday growth’, concludes Miletic.
Dortmund Airport was able to announce record passenger numbers in early July already. With 1,268,001 passengers in the first half of 2019, the airport handled more passengers than ever before in this period. The summer holiday growth is now seamlessly continuing the positive trend. These results underline the airport's ambition to handle at least 2.5 million passengers in 2019.