Passengers returning to AENA’s Spanish airports, but uncertainties remain

Spain remains reliant on tourism. In 2019 tourism generated 12.3% of GDP, and in some areas it accounts for as much as 15%. So passenger numbers at Spain's airports are always important to the government.

In Feb-2022 those numbers shot up dramatically, by hundreds of per cent compared to 2021, and they even compared reasonably well in some cases with the 2019 figures. Although the highest number of passengers remains at Madrid and Barcelona, the recovery of the coastal and island airports was in some cases more impressive.

The question now is whether this signifies a major milestone in the recovery from COVID or whether it will turn out to be another false dawn.

Meanwhile Spain has to cope with the loss of visitors from countries like the UK (a loss that may turn out to be temporary), and Russia and the Asia Pacific region (which will be longer lasting).