Prague Airport will handle 10.7 million people this year. The plan was two million less
Ptraffic at Prague’s Václav Havel Airport is recovering from the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic faster than expected. Last weekend, the number of transported passengers exceeded 10 million this year. For the whole year, there should be around 10.7 million, which is a significant increase compared to 4.4 million in 2021 and about two million more than the plan. The reason was the rapid lifting of the coronavirus measures, which had a greater positive impact than the consequences of the conflict in Ukraine.
According to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Prague Airport Jiří Pos, the company will make a profit this year, the operating profit should be around two billion crowns against 180 million last year. “Next year, we expect 12.7 million passengers to be transported,” said Pos. The company expects a better first quarter, which will not be dampened by epidemic restrictions. He is rather conservative with holiday traffic because of the economic situation, he said.
Nevertheless, it is still far from the record of 17.8 million passengers from the pre-Covid year 2019. The number of take-offs and landings, which reached roughly 490,000 during the year, is currently at 60 percent of 2019.
This year, Air Traffic Control will also end up in the black. According to CEO Jan Klas, after adopting a number of cost-saving measures in the past two years, the company expects the stabilization of the operation management system next year. “We expect a slight increase in traffic in overflights and at airports,” added Klas.
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According to Minister Martin Kupka (ODS), the Ministry of Transport is negotiating with several repairs to return them or increase traffic to Prague. Among others, he is negotiating with companies from Qatar, Canada and could return during the Korean Air summer season.
Next year, the ministry plans to move forward in the preparation of the parallel runway in Prague, where it expects to issue a final decision, and to start work on the railway connection between the airport and the center of Prague. He also wants to strengthen activities at regional airports, for example in České Budějovice. He also intends to develop activities in the Czech Aviation Training Centre, which was originally offered for sale, but no interested party was found at the expected price.
Air traffic controllers and the Civil Aviation Authority also have to deal with a lot of high drone traffic. According to David Jágr, director of ÚCL, there are currently over 40,000 drones in the country.