Canarian airports break their passenger ceiling. Last year they registered 48.4 million travelers, 6.4% more than in 2018, when the record that has prevailed until now of 45.3 million was broken. So, The island air hub is the third destination in the country with the highest number of movements after the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas and Josep Tarradellas Barcelos-El Prat aerodromes, and it still has not managed to recover the number of connections it had five years ago.
Two years before pandemic, The Archipelago maintained connections with 156 destinations through 90 airlines that operated regularly with the Islands. This air supply is still in the recovery phase, even more so after the ‘zero tourism’ of 2020. Before the pandemic, the supply from Canary Islands had already been reduced to 134 airports, it was not possible to return to these levels until 2022, when routes with 135 destinations were activated. Last year these experienced a qualitative leap, with 146 in total -10 less than in 2018-, which could be reached with tickets from 50 companies.
One of them, Ryanar, which is the one that offers the greatest number of places -4.6 million- to the total island count -15.5 million-, according to Promotur Turismo de Canarias, this winter flights have begun to operate between Tenerife south and three new destinations: Budapest (Hungary), Knock (Ireland) and Eindhoven (Netherlands). And in Gran CanariaAirBaltic For this high season, it has inaugurated ten routes and two weekly frequencies with Bergen (Norway), which until now had never had a flight straight with the island. Which illustrates this improvement in connectivity.
The best connected airfield is Gran Canaria, which moved 13.9 million people
But not everything is light, air traffic in the Archipelago faces challenges. In December, the Minister of Mobility, Pablo Rodríguezrecalled again in Parliament that the Canary Islands depend on airplanes to maintain the tourism industry, its engine economic, and for the flow of imports, which is why work is being done to stop, at least temporarily, the activation in the community of the European tax on emissions from flights arriving from the Union. “It cannot be applied in the same way in the Islands,” defended Rodríguez. In fact, he stressed that the Executive has commissioned studies to know the economic impact it would have on the economy.
Of the eight Canarian airports, Gran Canaria is the best connected and the one with the most passenger movement in 2023. In total, since Gando You can fly to 128 destinations via 220 routes. A frenzy of takeoffs and landings that last year brought and carried 13.9 million people, 12.4% compared to the previous year, which is 16 times the population of the island -865,756-. Of course, in the category of international connections, Tenerife south takes the Palm. From there the traveler can board to 102 points around the world via 187 connections, while from Gran Canaria the offer is reduced to 98, since there is a greater volume of inter-island and national flights.
Both Tenerife south, with 12.3 million passengers -an increase of 14% compared to 2022-, like Gando, remain in the national ranking of airports with the most suitcases on the belts and queues at the check-in counters, in seventh and sixth place respectively. They surpass them in travelers Madrid-Barajas (60.3 million), Barcelona-El Prat (49.9 million), Palma de Mallorca (31.1 million), Málaga-Costa del Sol (22.3 million) and Alicante-Elche (15.7 millions). Although if the total volume of the island’s air hub (48.4 million) is taken as a reference, the Canary Islands are placed in third place in the table.
The archipelago’s air ‘hub’ is the third in the country with the highest volume of human traffic
The rest of the island’s airfieldss also increased in traffic compared to the previous year. The one that experienced the greatest variation was La Gomera. The island that counted fewer than passengers, 113,318, registered an increase of 19%. For its part, Lanzarote was the third in the community with 8.2 million (+11.7%), followed by Ciudad de La Laguna and its 6.1 million (+10%) and Fuerteventura with 6 million (+6.7%). The iron It housed 301,241 people in its air infrastructure and La Palma 1.3 million. This was the island with the smallest increase, only 4.7%.
Across the country, Spanish airports received more than 283 million passengers, 16.2% above the same figure in 2022, and even improved by almost 3% on that of 2019, when the record of 275 was broken. .2 million travelers.
Canary Islands-world connection
33 countries
UK in the lead
- The Islands are connected by air with 33 countries. The largest number of places goes to the United Kingdom, with 6.4 million. In second place, the rest of national destinations, with 5.9 million seats; and in third Germany with 3 million. It is followed in the top 10 by Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Poland and Norway.
146 airports
Madrid, the preferred
- The Canary Islands are linked to 146 destinations around the world. The airport best connected to the Islands is Madrid-Barajas, with 2.7 million seats. After this, Manchester, Gatwick (London), Barcelona, Stansted (London), Duesseldorf, Dublin, Birmingham, Bristol and Frankfurt.
50 airlines
Ryanair in first place
- Ryanair is the one that offers the most seats to come to the Canary Islands, with 4.6 million seats. It is followed by Jet2.com (2.3 million), Vueling (2.2 million), Easy Jet (1.7 million), Iberia Express (1.6 million) and TUI Airways (one million). Condor, TUIfly, Air Europa and Eurowings close the top.