The Polish Air Navigation Services Agency (PAŻP) presents a report on changes in air traffic in Polish airspace in 2023 compared to 2022 and to 2019. The report was prepared on the basis of PAŻP’s own data and Eurocontrol.

The collected data shows that all air traffic has increased year-on-year, while compared to the period before the coronavirus pandemic, there are still declines, which are now mainly caused by the military operations in Ukraine and reduced transit traffic. Polish airports have seen significant increases, even relative to 2019.

The highest number of operations in the Polish airspace was recorded in the third quarter of last year: in July (72.5 thousand), August (71 thousand), September (67.9 thousand). In the aforementioned months, 31 % of all air traffic in 2023 was handled. 

For the whole of 2023, the number of total IFR flight operations (compared to 2019) decreased by 26 % to 687.4 thousand operations, while year-on-year (2023 vs. 2022) the number increased by 12 % from 615 thousand to 687.4 thousand operations.

Comparing 2023 to 2022 data shows that traffic at all Polish airports was in positive figures, with the largest traffic increases recorded at Radom airport (100 %/ opening of the airport after refurbishment), Szymany (47.5 %), Łódź (32.2 %), Bydgoszcz (27.9 %) and Wrocław (18.8 %), with the only traffic losses recorded at Lublin (-8.1 %).

In the case of transit flights, there was a significant decrease. In 2019, there were 482,828 flights, which accounted for as much as 52.2 % of all air traffic over Poland, and in 2023, the figure was 264,020 flights, or 38.4 % of the traffic handled.

Adrian Andrzejewski