Athens’ TOP20 Markets - Q1 2026, Up, Up and Away!
Strong start in 2026 with +8.1% in passenger traffic during Q1 and +7.0% in flights. International traffic is growing strong with +8.5%
Athens International Airport concluded another RECORD year in 2025, with 34mio passengers and 6.7% growth to 2024, thus achieving the busiest year in its history.
During the first 3 months of 2026, passenger traffic is growing further with 8.1% or 472,000 additional PAX.
Q1 2026 is marked by 2 main characteristics :
(a) the spectacular growth of Athens Winter months, January and February, with passenger traffic up by 10.8% to 2025 and
(b) the resilience of the Athens market in March 2026, despite the Middle East conflict, as passenger traffic grew further to March 2025 by almost 4%.
For Q1 2026, International passenger traffic accounted for 72.4% of Athens traffic, increasing by 8.5% to 2025 , while the Domestic traffic is growing by 7.1%.
Flights increased by 7.0% in Q1 2026 vs. 2025, with International traffic increasing by 7.6% and Domestic by 5.9%. For the same period, Load Factor on Scheduled PAX services, improved from 77% in Q1 2025 to 79% in Q1 2026, an improvement of 2 percentage points.
The TOP20 International markets, accounted for 62% of Total passenger traffic at Athens during Q1 2026.
Almost all of the TOP20 International markets recorded growth in Q1, with the majority recording strong growth rates and some maintaining previous year record volumes.
Among the TOP20 markets, Poland recorded the strongest growth in Q1 2026 vs. 2025 by 58%, followed by Egypt with 53% and Denmark with 39%. Strong growth also recorded at Spain with 23% to Q1 2025.
In addition to the TOP 20 International markets, spectacular growth is also recorded at Sweden with +59% to Q1 2025, followed by China with 42% and Portugal with 36%. Furthermore, New country markets in Q1 2026 delivered thousands of New passengers, with India resulting in almost 17,000 round-trip passengers in a very short period of time as direct connections to Delhi and Mumbai with IndiGo, just started on the 23rd of January 2026.