Barcelona-El Prat Airport has for the first time more passengers than Madrid-Barajas

Barcelona (ACN). Data released on Tuesday by the public body Spanish Airports and Air Navigation (AENA) revealed that the number of passengers travelling through Barcelona’s El Prat Airport has exceeded Madrid-Barajas Airport for the first time ever during the month of August. Barcelona El Prat Airport received 3.9 million passengers during August – an increase of 0.8% on the same month of last year. Meanwhile, Madrid Airport had 3.8 million passengers – a reduction of 11.7%. There has been a noted growth in the amount of non European Union passengers this yeah with 871,259 flying to or from El Prat this August – a rise of 12.95% last year. Furthermore, El Prat had an increase in the amount of passengers flying in transoceanic flights by 9.5% which represents 331,578. The accumulated total amount of passengers for Barcelona for this year is down by 1% and stands at 23,874,916 people.

The most popular destinations in transoceanic flights during August were New York and Tel Aviv. Furthermore, there was a notable increase in the amount of people travelling via the Qatar Airways route to Doha which grew by 57.7% on last year, meanwhile passengers to Dubai increased by 15.3%. The Dubai service, along with flights to Buenos Aires (Aerolíneas Argentinas), and Miami (American Airlines) will be flown by the Airbus A-380 next year, the world’s largest passenger plane.