In August 2025, Fraport Greece’s airports handled 6,8 million passengers, reflecting a 4,0% increase (+260K passengers) compared to August 2024, achieving two record-breaking milestones.
For the first time ever, Fraport Greece airports welcomed almost 6,8 million passengers in a single month. For the first time ever, a single airport – RHO – surpassed 1,3 million passengers in one month.
The Israel crisis in early summer did not affect Israeli traffic during August, which increased by 53,9% (+68K passengers). The growth was driven primarily by Israeli carriers (e.g., Arkia, Israir, EL AL, BlueBird). This strong performance excludes flights that were scheduled but later cancelled due to the crisis. The recovery rate reached 93,4% in July, compared to 81,6% in July 2023 and 37,0% in June, relative to pre-war scheduling.
Several airlines with scheduled flights at the start of the season have not yet resumed operations (e.g., Aegean, Wizzair). The estimated unrealized traffic for July is almost 80 missed flight movements, based on the original monthly program.
Santorini weighs on the overall view
JTR continues to significantly impact the overall performance of the Fraport Greece network, recording approximately 48K fewer passengers in August compared to the same period last year (-9,4%). Monthly comparisons show steady improvement in traffic: April -27,8%, May -21,4%, June -17,2%, July -11,6%. Most airlines recorded declines with the main contributor remains Volotea, with reduced operations across Greece resulting in a loss of almost 34K passengers (-46,2%).
The largest losses were recorded in domestic connections (-13.9% / -23,000 passengers) and in the British market (-22.6% / -18,000 passengers). This was offset by an increase in traffic from Turkey, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel.
The load factor improved slightly across the network, reaching 88.0% in August compared to 87.7% last year. Santorini showed a significant increase, while Thessaloniki and Rhodes showed a decrease, as the increase in flights was not accompanied by a corresponding increase in passengers.
No irregularities have been observed in Hungarian traffic at the affected airports since the August bankruptcy announcement of the Hungarian tour operator. Flight schedules, passenger volumes, and load factors have remained stable compared to pre-announcement levels. Hungarian traffic in August decreased by 6,4%, but this decline does not appear related to the Unitravel bankruptcy. Instead, it reflects the previously announced flight schedule reduction compared to last year.
Impressive performance for Thessaloniki and Rhodes
Thessaloniki saw the most impressive increase, with a 9.0% rise or 75,400 passengers. The increase came mainly from Germany, Israel, and Poland, with Ryanair adding 33,000 passengers (+17.2%) on its own.
Rhodes achieved a 4.8% increase or 60,300 passengers, with the Israeli market showing a 42.9% increase (+25,000 passengers).
Corfu maintained a strong momentum with a 5.3% increase or 48,700 passengers, thanks to Germany, the United Kingdom, and Israel. In Chania, the increase reached 6.7% or 46,000 passengers, with significant contributions from Ryanair, Condor, and Aegean, as well as strong demand from Austria, Germany, and France.
Domestic traffic reached 916 thousand passengers, up 12,400 (+1.4%) compared to August 2024. Her share of the total was 13.5%.
In its domestic market, Aegean Group recorded 588,304 passengers (+6.9%) and a 64.2% share. Sky Express 230,449 passengers (+6.7%) with a 25.2% share and Ryanair Group 83,566 passengers (+16.9%) with a 9.1% share.
International traffic reached 5.87 million passengers, an increase of 248 thousand, accounting for 86.5% of the total.
As for air travel in the international market, Ryanair Group had 981,053 passengers (+10.4%), easyJet Group 699,962 (+3.3%), TUI Group 588,447 (-0.8%), Lufthansa Group 457,072 (+6.4%), and Jet2.com 414,286 (+3.8%).
At the top departure airports, Gatwick recorded 336,680 passengers, Manchester 255,000, Amsterdam 204,991, Tel Aviv 192,811, and Vienna 183,871.
Since the concession began, Fraport Greece airports have served a total of approximately 239 million passengers.
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