MADRID (Reuters) – Spanish airlines expect record passenger traffic this summer, as tourists keep booking trips to make up for time lost during the COVID pandemic, the ALA industry association said on Friday.
Airlines plan to fill 245.9 million seats for the 2025 summer season, which runs from April to October, ALA’s chief, Javier Gandara, told reporters on Friday.
That would be 5.9% higher than the number of passengers who actually travelled through Spanish airports in the same period of 2024, he said.
Numbers had recovered from the slump during COVID and kept climbing in the years that followed, Gandara said.
“This upward trend in traffic confirms people’s desire to travel and make up for lost time due to the health crisis … If no external factor changes the trend, we could end the year with another record.”
The world’s economic uncertainty is the main risk that could derail the tourism industry, Gandara said.
The tourism boom in Spain is set to keep on growing this year and propel the country’s economic growth to a faster pace than the rest of the euro zone, according to central bank forecasts.
The number of passengers during the 2024-2025 winter hit a record 111 million, 6.6% up from the same period a year earlier.
(Reporting by Inti Landauro; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
