Air traffic at Geneva Cointrin remained marked by the Covid 19 pandemic in 2021. Geneva Airport will welcome 5.92 million passengers in 2021. compared with 5.60 million passengers in 2020. That's 5.8% more than in 2020, but 67% less passenger traffic than in 2019. That year, the airport reached a historic record of 17.926 million passengers.
The upturn in traffic is due to a rebound in demand in the second half of the year. The increase was particularly marked in July and August, with good passenger volumes until November, when the omicron variant appeared. In the first half of the year, passenger numbers had barely reached 13% of pre-crisis volume.
Recovery in long-haul traffic
The number of destinations served rose slightly to 139. But the airport notes that long-haul traffic has returned to all its pre-pandemic destinations. At the end of the year, the platform regained all its transatlantic routes. Latest announcement: Qatar Airways to return next March. Long-haul passengers benefit from the brand new East Winginaugurated in December.
This wing, which replaces the wide-body pavilion, will increase airport capacity. With a length of 520 m, it can handle 2,800 departing passengers per hour, 3,000 arriving passengers and five wide-body aircraft on contact. Construction took five years, with major physical constraints due to the airport's small footprint, squeezed between the city and the French border.
Airlines, Easyjet remains number one with 47.8% market share, followed by Swiss with 9.2%. Air France and British Airways are neck and neck (4.2% each). Next came Iberia (3.9%), KLM (3%), TAP Air Portugal (2.5%), Emirates (2.3%), Lufthansa (2.2%) and Turkish Airlines (2.1%). The three most popular destinations from Geneva were Porto (35,569 passengers), Madrid (35,266) and London-Heathrow (34,127).
