Swedavia’s traffic statistics for July 2020: Passenger volume down 87 per cent

During July, 486,000 passengers flew via Swedavia’s ten airports, a decrease of 87 per cent compared to 3.8 million passengers during the same month last year. The aviation market shows new signs of recovery, but the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have continued to have a strong negative impact on the demand for flights. As a result, the market outlook remains uncertain.

Of the 486,000 passengers in July, 307,000 were international passengers, which is a 90 per cent decrease from last year. Domestic travel decreased to a somewhat lesser extent, with a downturn of 79 per cent in July, compared to 179,000 passengers for the same month last year.

“We see that the air travel industry cautiously continues to recover as travel restrictions are eased, which enables increased travel. However, passenger volumes in July were also at a historically low level, with the number of passengers decreasing 3.3 million compared to the same month last year. The consequences for the aviation ecosystem and Swedavia are thus still significant,” says Jonas Abrahamsson, Swedavia’s president and CEO.

In July, a number of European airlines resumed service, including the carrier Norwegian, and also in Sweden. Furthermore, SAS increased the number of its destinations, while charter traffic also started up during the month. However, long-haul traffic to and from Sweden is still very limited.

“Given all the uncertainty factors, our view is still that air travel will recover at a slow pace and that the aviation market will be strongly affected both this year and next year. After that, it will probably take another few years before air travel returns to pre-Covid levels,” says Jonas Abrahamsson.

At Stockholm Arlanda Airport, Sweden’s largest airport, air travel decreased 87 per cent to 316,000 passengers in July compared to the same month last year. At Göteborg Landvetter Airport, Sweden’s second largest airport, air travel decreased 90 per cent to nearly 72,000 passengers during the month. At Swedavia’s regional airports, passenger volume decreased between 77 and 97 per cent compared to passenger figures last July.

For many years, Swedavia has carried out ambitious sustainability work. All ten of its airports shall have zero emissions of fossil carbon dioxide from their own operations by the end of 2020. Swedavia also works actively to promote the industry’s transition to sustainable aviation fuel and has the goal that five per cent of all fuel used to refuel aircraft at Swedish airports shall be fossil-free by 2025. Since 2016, Swedavia buys renewable aviation fuel equivalent to that used for the company’s business travel, about 450 tonnes of fuel each year.

Traffic statistics for Swedavia’s airports are available (in Swedish) under “Om Swedavia/Statistik”. https://www.swedavia.se/om-swedavia/statistik/.

More information about the measures Swedavia has taken for our passengers is available at www.swedavia.se. See, for instance: https://www.swedavia.com/arlanda/travel-information-related-to-the-coronavirus/?_ga=2.198658735.1626668832.1597059240-956780354.1567493055 .

For further information, please contact Swedavia’s press office at tel. +46 (0)10-109 01 00 or press@swedavia.se.