Graz Airport 2022: A noticeable upswing and a bright outlook
Business & Aviation
Feldkirchen/Graz, 11.01.2023: Graz Airport looked after more than 561,000 passengers last year, two and a half times as many as 2021. While these numbers are still lower than before the pandemic, they are considerably higher than planned at the start of 2022. This trend, coupled with the planned flight programme for the coming summer and the opening of a Eurowings base, indicate a sustained positive development this year.
The beginning of 2022 was still very strongly shaped by the repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic and the corresponding travel restrictions. From the second quarter there was a noticeable relaxation of the situation. With the start of the summer flight schedule and the resumption of scheduled flights to Zürich, the airport was once again able to offer connections to the 5 major hubs – Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna and Zürich – as well as the financial centres Düsseldorf and Stuttgart, although still not with the frequency density that was normal before the pandemic.
The summer tourist flight schedule developed very well, with a varied programme consisting of around 15 holiday destinations, a series of special flights, and a scheduled programme which was gradually expanded.
“After the gradual withdrawal of the coronavirus restrictions, the flight business started up again much better than all the experts had predicted”, explains Wolfgang Grimus, Managing Director of Graz Airport. “Both the hub connections and the tourist destinations were well utilised. As a result we looked after around 110,000 more passengers than we had planned!”
“Of course the increase in flight traffic also had a very positive impact on the non-aviation area”, says Jürgen Löschnig, Managing Director of Graz Airport. “The gastronomy businesses once again opened their doors, and from the second quarter our events area was well booked, with almost 200 events in total!”
The representative of the owners, Wolfgang Malik, CEO Holding Graz: “After a low level due to the coronavirus pandemic, Graz Airport is now once again effectively on an upturn.”
As the owners’ representative, Malik is looking optimistically to the future, not least due to the new Eurowings base in Graz and the additional new connections associated with it: “Our airport in Graz is the largest regional airport in the Alps-Adriatic region, and will thus offer an expanded range of popular connections in Europe in future; this will also bring the north of Germany closer to Styria, which is especially attractive for business and tourism.”
In line with its guiding principle of protecting the climate, Holding Graz is anyway pursuing the strategy of operating Graz Airport on a CO2-neutral basis as rapidly as possible, and developing the site for the generation and storage of renewable energies thanks to its area.
So Malik is confident that with its multifunctionality, not only will Graz Airport soon once again become the top regional airport with many international connections, but also that this mobility hub to the south of Graz can be expanded and upgraded with innovative and sustainable additional uses.
The development in 2022 in detail
Scheduled and holiday flights
A distinct upward trend is apparent in both segments.
441,699 passengers chose a scheduled connection from Graz to set off on their business or holiday travel – this is 270,355 passengers or 157.8% more than in 2021.
119,836 passengers used one of the many charter flights to take off for their holiday, which corresponds to an increase of 64,618 or 117%.
Cargo
After the exceptionally good result in 2021, which can be ascribed among other things to 30 cargo flights transporting medical materials needed in the pandemic from Asia to Graz, mostly using Boeing 747s, a decline in 2022 was already expected beforehand.
In 2022 a total cargo volume of 16,556 tons was achieved, corresponding to a reduction of 14% or around 2,694 tons.
General aviation
Following 2021, when business travellers increasingly switched to business flights, in 2022 these flights decreased again to some extent due to the increased availability of scheduled flights. So in 2022 31,412 flights were implemented in this segment, corresponding to a decrease of -15.9% compared to 2021.
Significant expansion of flights on offer in the coming summer, with 5 new destinations
12 individual flight/short link destinations: Barcelona – Dubrovnik – Funchal – Granada – Hamburg – Lamezia Terme – Las Palmas – Lourdes – Paphos – Thessaloniki – Tivat – Valencia
As well as the scheduled flights to Hamburg and Berlin, and the holiday flight chains to Chania, Kefalonia and Larnaca, there are also numerous new individual flights, for example to Granada, Funchal or Tivat. This means that direct flights will be taking off to around 35 destinations in 14 different countries.
Naturally a special highlight is the opening of a Eurowings base at Graz Airport, which will offer passengers not only new destinations, but also better flying times. In addition, an Avanti Air aircraft will be deployed for the further expansion of the tourist programme.
“With the further consolidation of the scheduled flight offering and the attractive tourist portfolio, we are looking ahead to a promising summer”, says Wolfgang Grimus optimistically.
