Innsbruck Airport

“2024 more positive than expected” despite passenger decline

Innsbruck Airport takes stock.

(Bild: Gerhard Berger)

Passenger numbers and flight movements were in decline - nevertheless, Innsbruck Airport is reasonably satisfied with the results for 2024. Especially as the development was ultimately "much more positive than initially feared" despite the challenges.

The previous year began with the worst possible news for Innsbruck Airport. Capacity bottlenecks at Lufthansa would lead to "route adjustments and cancellations within the Group", it was reported at the time. The connection to the Frankfurt hub was therefore completely canceled in the summer flight schedule. And then there was also a reduction in flight frequencies on the Vienna route.

More than 860,000 passengers
It was therefore foreseeable early on that passenger numbers would decline over the course of 2024. "Fortunately, however, the year as a whole developed much more positively than initially feared. With 862,202 annual passengers in scheduled and charter traffic, 2024 ended with a decrease of 4.9%," it says.

The number of flight movements in scheduled and charter traffic was 7573, which corresponds to a decrease of 13.4% compared to the previous year.

The airport recorded more than 7500 flight movements.

(Bild: Christof Birbaumer)

If you compare the number of annual passengers in 2024 with the record year 2019, it is still a quarter below the 2019 level. The difference in flight movements is even more striking at around 37%.

Three quarters of aircraft utilized
The figure for average aircraft capacity utilization is encouraging: at 74%, the capacity utilization of flights in 2024 was four percentage points better than in 2023. This means that the capacity utilization is only one percentage point below the record year of 2019.

The strongest airlines and top nations
In 2024, the "strongest airlines" in Innsbruck were the Dutch airline Transavia and the British airline easyJet. "Both airline partners even increased their annual passenger volumes compared to the previous year 2023: Transavia carried four percent more passengers, easyJet even almost ten percent more," says the airport.

The top countries were once again the UK and the Netherlands. The three most popular destinations last year were London, Vienna and Amsterdam.

These results once again show the importance of the winter season for Innsbruck Airport.

Flughafengeschäftsführer Marco Pernetta

Bild: Christof Birbaumer

More than half of the annual passengers are handled at the airport during the winter months. "These results once again show the importance of the winter season for Innsbruck Airport. There is strong demand from international guests who want to spend their winter vacations in Tyrol and our neighboring regions," says Airport Managing Director Marco Pernetta.

Summer season is gaining in importance
However, the summer season is also becoming increasingly important. More than 35,000 Tyroleans flew on vacation from Innsbruck. There has been a particular increase in flights to Greece and Spain.

This summer, there will also be flights from Innsbruck to Turkey again. The tour operator TUI Austria is offering a direct flight to the destination airport Antalya every week from May 23.

The company is "very confident" about 2025 and the rest of the winter season. The Frankfurt route has also been resumed since the end of October, and frequencies to Vienna, Amsterdam, London, Athens and Brussels, among others, have been increased.