Václav Havel Airport Prague, operated by Prague Airport, is set to break last year’s record figures of the number of passengers handled. The first half of 2019 saw 7,841,865 passengers, conveying an increase of 5% YoY. Additionally, there was a 10% rise in the number of long-haul flight passengers YoY.

The chairman of the board of directors of Prague Airport, Václav Řehoř explained, ‘The year-on-year increase in the number of cleared passengers has been at the upper limit of our prediction from the beginning of the year for the past six months. The opening of direct connections to a total of nine new destinations, the arrival of three new carriers and the increase in frequencies on 10 routes, including one long-haul, contributed to such a good result.’

The press release also stated that Paris, Moscow, Amsterdam and Frankfurt were the most common destinations. The period had 95 flights in a week between Prague and Frankfurt, 63 flights a week to Moscow, 58 to Paris and slightly lower figure of 54 flights in a week from Prague to Amsterdam. Furthermore, there was a significant rise in the number of travellers who commuted directly to and from Amsterdam and Antalya of 30,000 and 26,000 passengers respectively. 

Řehoř said, ‘We already have a very well covered network of short flights across Europe. The extension of long-haul flights is therefore an important point of our strategy for developing direct flights from Prague.’ 

The same period last year saw the airport handling 7,463,975 passengers and a total of 16,797,006 checked-in passengers and 155,530 take-offs and landings by the end of the year.