Summer travel on the increase: more people travelled this year than last year

“We welcomed slightly more passengers in July than we did in June, which makes July our busiest month to date this year in terms of passenger numbers,” says Gaute Skallerud Riise, VP for Traffic Development at Avinor.

“The combination of business and leisure travel often makes June the year’s busiest month, but this year we have seen an uptick in volume for July. July is typically characterised by holiday and leisure travel, and when we compare with the figures for June we can see that domestic travel has decreased while international travel has risen.

“The fact that July is the month with the highest level of traffic unlike in 2019 is largely attributable to recovery of holiday and leisure travel being much greater than that of business travel, which means the peak occurs in July rather than June,” says Riise.

Passenger figures

2,268,000 passengers travelled domestically in the month of July. This is an increase of 17 per cent from July 2022. 2,528,342 passengers travelled internationally, representing an increase of 14 per cent compared with the same month last year, but this figure is still 8 per cent down on the corresponding figure for July 2019.

“There is a marked increase in the number of passengers compared with last year, both domestically and internationally. The reason for this is likely down to the aviation industrial action that took place here in Norway last summer, as well as other challenges at airports in Europe at the same time,” says Riise.   

Aircraft movements

There were 62,027 commercial aircraft movements in July 2023. This is an increase of 4 per cent from July last year. Compared to July 2019, there has been a drop in the number of aircraft movements of 8 per cent.

Year to date compared to 2019

A comparison of total passenger number this year to-date with the same period in 2019 shows that we are currently 11 per cent behind the 2019 benchmark year. The total number of aircraft movements to date this year is still 7 per cent down on the corresponding figure in 2019. See all figures in the appendix “07.2023”.

Continued increase in drone operations

In July there were a total of 1,103 drone flights registered in the Ninox Drone-Avinor system for drone monitoring. This was an increase of 164 per cent when compared with July 2022.

“July is a month when many people are on holiday, but we have continued to see strong growth in the use of drones,” says Axel Knutsen, VP Avinor Drone Programme.

To date this year, there has been a 120 per cent increase on last year.

“This means that we have already passed the total number of flights in 2022 as of the end of July 2023.

“Unfortunately, there are still many people who are unfamiliar with the rules that apply to drone flights. This means that some flights that take place are illegal, which can pose a serious danger to others in the same airspace. We would urge everyone to familiarise themselves with the rules before they operate their drones. Please visit https://avinor.no/en/corporate/at-the-airport/droner/ninox-drone to view a clear presentation of the rules,” says Knutsen.