The first month of the winter season 2016-2017 showed double-digit growth (+11%, for 391,000 passengers), guaranteeing a very positive end to the year. The threshold of 5,000,000 passengers, reached for the first time in December 2015, was largely overtaken by November 2016. Traffic at Bordeaux Airport has increased by 8.4% since the beginning of the year. In November, national traffic contributed to this success with a gain of 13.7%, representing over 250,000 monthly passengers; international traffic also saw a positive trend with a rise of 7.1%. Low cost flights continued to grow with +15.1% for 2,367,000 passengers.
Domestic traffic posted its strongest growth since the beginning of the year: +13.7% for 250,000 passengers. The services benefited from excellent seat-occupancy rates. Routes such as Bastia (+35.6%), Strasbourg (+32.7%), Marseille (+28%) or Lyon (+13.6%) contributed greatly to this performance. With Hop! Air France celebrating 20 years of the Bordeaux-Paris shuttle and announcing that it will continue after the opening of the high-speed rail service between the two cities, Orly posted its monthly growth record in November with a 13.7% rise in traffic.
International flights continued to show a clear growth trend with +7.1% for over 138,000 passengers. Ranking top for the fastest growing major destinations in November were the services to Spain: Palma (Volotea and Vueling) +69%, Madrid (Iberia and Iberia Express) +56.6% and Barcelona (easyJet and Vueling) + 48.5%. North African destinations such as Marrakesh and Algiers recorded very good results, +30.5% and +14.6% respectively; an encouraging trend coinciding with the launch of a new Air Arabia route to Fes. Intercontinental hubs are showing similar upturns: Madrid (Iberia and Iberia Express) +56.6%, Lisbon (TAP and easyJet) +21.6%, Paris Charles de Gaulle (Air France) +13.7%, Brussels (Brussels Airlines and easyJet) +9.4% and Amsterdam (KLM and easyJet) +1.7%.
Low cost activity continued to show very strong gains with a 15.1% rise in traffic for 140,000 passengers per month. The operator easyJet recorded the strongest growth in terms of volume with 96,600 passengers (+13.4% in traffic), thanks in particular to its flights to Bristol and Berlin, operating for the first time during the winter.
November also afforded an opportunity to announce the arrival of a new route for the summer 2017 schedule: Frankfurt with Lufthansa as from 2 April 2017.
08/12/2016
