Traffic volumes: majority-owned international subsidiaries

Passenger volumes

Brazil

Declining Covid case rates and the resulting relaxation of travel restrictions led to strong growth in Brazilian air travel in the 2022 financial year. In aggregate, passenger volumes for the whole year at all three majority-owned subsidiaries (Florianópolis, Vitória and Macaé) reached approximately 87% of pre-crisis levels. Taking the month of December alone, the numbers recovered to 94% of 2019 levels.

Florianópolis
In comparison with the previous year, traffic volumes at Florianópolis Airport rose 44% to 3.4 million passengers. As well as the fall in Covid-19 case rates in Brazil, this massive increase is due to the relaxation of travel restrictions in neighbouring countries. This also led to the addition of regular international flights to Santiago de Chile and Montevideo. The domestic route network was further extended in the 2022 financial year as well.

Vitória/Macaé
Traffic volumes at the two airports in Vitória and Macaé increased 33% year on year to 2.9 million passengers. Routes to northeast Brazil from Vitória were added to the domestic network. With around 27,000 flight movements in 2022, Macaé is credited with being the airport that handles the most helicopter flights in the world. Besides its existing regular business flights to Rio de Janeiro, there are now also flights from Macaé to Viracopos Airport in the São Paulo metropolitan region.

Chile

Airports in Chile recovered quickly following the pandemic with a strong resurgence in domestic flights. The increase in demand for copper and lithium and the related rise in passenger numbers in connection with the mining activities close to the airports in Iquique and Antofagasta had a positive impact on the economic development of these two airports, which are operated by Flughafen Zürich AG. With a total of 3.8 million passengers, traffic volumes at the two airports in Chile grew 32% year on year, once again reaching the same levels as in 2019.

Antofagasta
Traffic rose significantly in the second half in particular, even surpassing 2019 levels in the last months of the year. Total passenger numbers did not quite hit the record levels achieved in 2019, however (around 8% less). One reason for the extraordinary result was the temporary closure of Calama Airport close to Antofagasta.

Iquique
Thanks to the booming mining industry, passenger volumes reached pre-crisis levels again already at the beginning of the year under review. Iquique also benefited from domestic tourism as travelling abroad was still subject to many restrictions. Although numbers in the last three months were down year on year, total passenger numbers over the reporting year were 10% up on pre-pandemic levels.

Key data