“In March 2024, 146,079 passengers disembarked at Azorean airports, an increase of 11.6 percent compared to the same period last year”, reads the report on air passenger movements for the month of March, published on the SREA website.

In the first quarter of the year, the region saw more than 369,000 passengers disembark, an increase of 7.4 percent over the same period last year.

With the exception of Faial, which saw a 4.9 percent drop in the number of arrivals at its airports, the island showed a “positive monthly year-on-year change” in March.

Pico was the island which grew the most in arrivals at its airports (52.6 percent), followed by Flores (43.6 percent), Graciosa (24.1 percent), and Terceira (17.6 percent).

Taking into consideration the accumulated figure for the first quarter, only Corvo showed a negative year-on-year change of 4.5 percent.

The islands where the biggest increases occurred were Pico (17.6 percent), Santa Maria (14.4 percent) and Flores (12.7 percent).

The largest number of passengers disembarking in March (70,259) originated in other regions of Portugal, (mainland Portugal and Madeira), however, this type of passenger grew the least year-on-year (2.9 percent).

Passengers travelling from abroad (15,220) rose by 53.5 percent, while passengers disembarking from inter-island flights (60,600) grew by 14.9 percent.

The number of passengers embarking in March totalled 143,312, a year-on-year increase of 13.1 percent.

In terms of type of flight, there were 68,358 passenger boardings on flights to the mainland and Madeira (up 6.1 percent), 60,524 boardings on inter-islands flights (up 14.3 percent) and 14,430 boardings on international flights (up 54.1 percent).