23.07 million passengers travelled via Berlin Airport last year (+16%) – Steady passenger numbers in December

Passenger numbers at Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) increased slightly last December with the start of the Christmas holidays. A total of 1.77 million passengers travelled via Berlin Brandenburg Airport; the number was around 1.75 million in the previous month of November. These are the provisional figures from the traffic report. In December 2022, 1.53 million passengers were counted at BER; there were 2.6 million passengers at the then Tegel and Schönefeld airports in December of the pre-pandemic year 2019. 

The number of flight movements in December 2023 was around 13,600. This was around 1,400 more aircraft than in the same month last year. In December 2019, almost 21,200 flight movements were registered at Tegel and Schönefeld.

A total of 23.07 million passengers used BER last year. This was 3.22 million (16%) more than in 2022, but still 12.6 million fewer than before the pandemic. A total of 176,649 aircraft took off and landed at the capital airport last year. This corresponds to an increase of 7.5 percent compared to 2022. There were 277,600 take-offs and landings in 2019.

Last December, air cargo volumes were 14 percent higher than in the pre-pandemic year 2019: a total of around 3,200 tonnes of air cargo were loaded at BER in December 2023. 34,038 tonnes of cargo were handled in the whole of 2023, an increase of almost 7 percent compared to 31,827 tonnes in 2022. This was 35,000 tonnes of air cargo in 2019.

Aletta von Massenbach, Chief Executive Officer of Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg GmbH: “Demand for air travel continued to increase last year. Around 20 million people used BER in 2023 for flights abroad and for flights from abroad to Berlin. This corresponds to 73 percent of the pre-pandemic level and is a sign that people are continuing to prioritise holidays. We actually returned to the 2019 level last year for long-haul connections.”