“In October 2023, 171,245 passengers disembarked at Azores airports, registering a positive variation of 7.3% compared to the same month of the previous year”, reads the report on air transport.

According to SREA data consulted by Lusa, between 1986 and 2023, the value recorded in October is the highest in that month, surpassing the record recorded in 2022, with 159,561 landings.

Among the passengers who disembarked in the Azores in October, the largest number came from flights from the mainland or Madeira (80,715), a type that registered a year-on-year monthly increase of 3.9%.

Passengers on interisland flights (72,400), which led to the number of arrivals in the Azores between June and September, grew 7.4% compared to the same month in 2022.

Travelers arriving on flights from abroad recorded the highest monthly increase year-on-year (25.7%), with 18,130 landings.

According to SREA, all islands in the archipelago showed a “positive monthly year-on-year variation in passenger arrivals, except Corvo”, which recorded a drop of 2.8%.

Faial was the island with the highest growth (10.8%) compared to October 2022, followed by São Miguel (8.6%), Santa Maria (6.7%), Pico (5.8%) and Graciosa (5%).

The islands of Terceira (4.7%), Flores (1.6%) and São Jorge (0.6%) were those with smaller increases.

São Miguel, the largest island in the archipelago, accounted for more than half of October's landings (102,048), followed by the islands of Terceira (35,782) and Faial (11,124).

As for the number of passengers embarked, it reached 178,844, 7.6% more than in October 2022.

Regarding the type of flight, there was an increase of 5.6% in passengers who boarded flights to Madeira and mainland Portugal (84,931), 7.7% on inter-island flights (72,651) and 16.2% on international flights ( 21,262).