El Prat airport: 11% more passengers and new intercontinental connections in 2017

• Between January and October this year, 38,108,443 travelers passed through the El Prat airport
• Shanghai, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seoul and Lima among the new connections

The El Prat airport is seeing significant growth in the number of passengers it handles, making it one of the main airports on the European continent. The new intercontinental connections are another step towards making the facility an intercontinental hub, and towards positioning Barcelona and Catalonia as a magnet for the world with investment and economic growth opportunities for social progress, new jobs and improved quality of life for all residents.

El Prat was up 11% in October compared to the same month the previous year, with a total of 4,018,769passengers according to recent information from Aena. Of these, 3,004,518 were traveling on international flights, a segment up 11.9%. Between January and October of this year, 38,108,443 travelers passed through the El Prat airport, a figure that is also up 11% from the same period in 2015.

It must be noted that Eurostat statistics rank El Prat 9th in Europe in number of passengers, with 39.4 million in 2015. In this regard, El Prat’s main domain is Europe, serving more passengers on flights within the European Union than any other Spanish airport, a total of 22.4 million. The number of intercontinental flights, however, is still low. Barcelona is ranked 25th in Europe in this segment, however several new flights announced for 2017 give reason to be optimistic.

Firstly, Barcelona will have a direct flight to Shanghai starting in February 2017, operated by Air China. Also, Norwegian Airlines – which has recently inaugurated its corporate headquarters at the Barcelona airport, doubling its staff there– has announced new flights next year to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami and New York, and also expects to fly to South America in 2017, with Argentina and Chile as their first Latin American destinations. Furthermore, American Airlines has also announced it will fly direct between Chicago and Barcelona in 2017, while Korean Air will have direct flights between Barcelona and Seoul starting in April 2017. LATAM Airlines has begun flying direct between Barcelona and Lima this month, and Singapore Airlines has announced it will begin flying the A-350 on the Barcelona-Singapore route, which is the first time this type of plane has operated out of Barcelona.