The International Airport of Faro registered the biggest drop in movements at national airports in the second quarter, with 97% less than in the same period last year, according to the Quarterly Bulletin of the National Civil Aviation Authority (ANAC).
ANAC data show that, in the period under analysis, there was a drop in traffic in Portugal of around 91% in number of movements and 97,5% in number of passengers transported.
the airport of Faro presented the biggest drop in number of movements (-97%), while Ponta Delgada airport registered the smallest drop (-80%).
As for the number of passengers transported, less than 388 thousand (it had been 15 million in the same quarter of 2019), the breaks were more homogeneous and higher than 96% in all the main national airports.
ANAC also concluded that, in the second quarter of 2020, of the approximately 11 thousand commercial movements carried out (against 124 thousand in the previous year), only 67% corresponded to commercial passenger movements (94% in the second quarter of 2019).
Thus, in the context of restrictions on operations imposed by the covid-19 pandemic, there was an increase in cargo flights, whose weight increased to 21% (1% in the second quarter of 2019).
In turn, executive aviation has grown in representativeness, albeit in a context of decline in absolute terms, due to the nature of the “personalized and customized” service, and, finally, flights for medical and assistance purposes have grown by around 40% , compared to the values recorded in the same period of 2019.
The domestic segment, on the contrary, presented a “less dramatic” value, adds ANAC, with a drop of 0% in the number of operations, compared to 77% registered in the international segment.
The domestic segment represented even 44% of the total flights performed in the period under analysis, when in the same period of 2019 their representation did not exceed 16%.
“Finally, it is important to add that the chain variations achieved in the air operations of this quarter - 39% in May and 79% in July - seem to show some fruits resulting from the efforts of the international and national civil aviation system, with the expectation that they will translate a recovery in passenger traffic in the following quarters ”, concluded ANAC.
Measures to combat the pandemic have paralyzed entire sectors of the world economy and have led the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to make unprecedented predictions in its almost 75 years: the world economy may fall 4,9% in 2020, dragged by a contraction of 8 % in the United States, 10,2% in the euro zone and 5,8% in Japan.
The effects of the pandemic were already reflected in the Portuguese economy in the second quarter, with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) falling 16,5% compared to the same period in 2019, according to data from the National Statistics Institute (INE).
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