Passenger traffic at Polish airports sharply down in 2020

Polish airports serviced 14.5 million passengers in 2020, a 70 percent drop on the preceding year due to traveling restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Civil Aviation Authority (ULC) has said.

"The last time that a smaller number of passengers was serviced by Polish airports was 15 years ago," ULC wrote on its website.

Most passenger traffic went through Warsaw's Chopin Airport, which serviced 5.5 million passengers, a fall of nearly 13.4 million, or 71 percent, compared to 2019.

Krakow's Balice airport with 2.6 million passengers placed second, down by 5.5 million or 69.2 percent year on year.

The Gdansk Lech Walesa airport was third, with 1.7 million passengers, down from 5.3 million in 2019.

According to ULC, the budget airline Ryanair carried over 3.9 million passengers to and from Poland, a decrease of over 8 million from 2019.

Poland's national airline (LOT Polish Airlines) took second place with nearly 3.6 million, down from nearly 11.8 million the previous year.

Wizz Air budget airline carried 3.3 million passengers, down from nearly 9.5 million in 2019.

According to ULC, the highest number of passengers travelled to and from Great Britain, Germany and Italy. Passenger traffic on regular flights fell by 69.5 percent year on year in 2020.

The number of passengers on charter flights fell by 77.3 percent. The most popular destinations in 2020 were Turkey, Greece and Egypt.