Traffic is growing at most airports in Croatia.
In the first five months of the year, nine Croatian airports saw a total of 2.1 million passengers, or 15.1 percent more than in the same period last year, with almost 900,000, or 16.4 percent more, passengers just in May, according to data published by the Central Bureau of Statistics, reports Poslovni.hr on 13 July 2017.
The increase in the number of passengers at all airports in the first five months of this year was also associated with an increase in the number of aircraft operations. There were around 32,000 such operations or 4.5 percent more than last year.
On the other hand, the cargo traffic at Croatian airports in the first five months of this year was reduced by 7 percent, to about 3,000 tonnes, although in May, the cargo transport recorded an increase of 5 percent, to 681 tonnes.
That largest number of passengers in May, about 267,000, was registered at the airport in Zagreb, which was an increase of 8.3 percent compared to May 2016. The smallest number of passengers used the services of the Mali Lošinj airport, with just 209 passengers, which was 40.6 percent fewer passengers than last year. However, the airport has not been fully operational and has been waiting for reconstruction as an allegedly strategically-important state project since last year.
In addition to Lošinj, the decline in the passenger numbers for May of this year was registered only by the Rijeka/Krk airport, by 12 percent, to almost 10,000 passengers.
The second largest airport by the number of passengers was the Split Airport, which in May this year served 254,200 passengers, or 26 percent more than in May 2016, which is the largest increase among all airports. It was followed by the partially restored and expanded Dubrovnik Airport with 252,200 passengers, or 19.5 percent more, and the Zadar Airport, through which about 61,200 passengers passed in May, or 1 percent more than the year before.
A significant increase in the number of passengers, by as much as 37.4 percent, to 48,000, was recorded by the airport in Pula. The Osijek Airport registered an increase of two percent in the number of passengers, to slightly more than 3,600, while the largest increase among all airports in May, by 58.3 percent, had the airport on the island of Brač. However, even with such an increase, the number of passengers there was just over 1,000.
