Ljubljana, 19 April (STA) - A total of 1.69 million passengers travelled through the three Slovenian international airports last year, with the biggest, Ljubljana Airport, accounting for 1.68 million passengers. Both figures are a 20% increase over 2016, the Statistics Office reported on Thursday.
The figures show 93% of the passengers travelled on scheduled flights and 60% of all passengers on scheduled flights travelled within the EU.
Broken down by country, most of them went to or returned from the United Kingdom (16%) and Germany (15%).
The highest increase in the number of passengers on regular flights was recorded between Slovenia and the Netherlands. The figure doubled compared to 2016 as Dutch low-cost carrier Transavia launched scheduled flights connecting the two capitals in April.
On the other hand, the biggest drop in the number of passengers, 6%, was recorded on flights between Slovenia and Serbia.
The share of passengers travelling on unscheduled flights within the EU stood at 55%. Most of the passengers travelled to or from Greece (40%) and Tunisia (12%).
The number of passengers rose six-fold on unscheduled flights between Slovenia and Egypt, while the number of passengers travelling to or from Iceland dropped by a third compared to 2016.
Despite the increase of passengers travelling through Slovenian airports, the Slovenian-based carrier Adria recorded a 17% drop to 1.21 million passengers last year.
The three airports, Ljubljana, Maribor and Portorož, handled 12,300 tonnes of cargo, which is an 18% increase over 2016. Transshipment at Ljubljana Airport increased by 16% to 12,000 tonnes.
Adria carried 1,828 tonnes of cargo, an increase of 28%.