In 2022, the recovery of aviation activities was strong. After a start to the year impacted by the Omicron variant, Geneva Airport welcomed more than 14 million passengers in 2022, more than double the number in 2021 (5.92 million passengers), thanks to a significant recovery from February onwards, which continued over Easter and throughout the summer. Financially, Geneva Airport will announce in March 2023 a marked return to numbers in the black for the past year.
For the whole of 2022, Geneva Airport handled 14,085,280 passengers, 137.8% more than in 2021, but 21.4% less than in 2019. As a reminder, in 2019, Geneva Airport handled 17,926,625 passengers. In its first full year of operation, the East Wing for long-haul and non-Schengen flights handled 4.48 million passengers.
In the last twelve months, total landings and take-offs reached 163,168 movements, 64.4% higher than in 2021. Despite the strong increase in commercial traffic and high business aviation activity last year, the number of movements remains below (-12.3%) the 186,043 movements recorded in 2019.
These two indicators - aircraft movements and passengers - show that Geneva Airport is emerging from the crisis and entering a phase of stabilisation. Another noteworthy element is that Geneva Airport, in association with the other players on the platform, showed great operational control during the summer in the face of this marked return in traffic.
Just as during the Covid crisis, several airlines favoured the latest generation of aircraft in 2022 and thus contributed to limiting noise emissions. These category 5 aircrafts, which are quieter and consume less fuel (including the A-220, A 320neo, A 350 and Boeing 787), accounted for 24.95% of all airline and charter aircraft movements (22.25% in 2021).
Scheduled and unscheduled commercial and charter flights after 22:00, which were sharply down in 2020 and 2021 due to the collapse of air traffic, remained 7.2% lower than in 2019 (8913 movements compared to 9600 movements).
Geneva Airport's service has increased from 139 destinations in 2021 to 146 destinations in 2022. With the upcoming return of Air China on 26 January 2023, Geneva Airport has regained its full pre-Covid long-haul service.
The market shares of the top ten airlines for the past year were as follows: easyJet (49.6%), SWISS (11.5%), British Airways (4.7%), Air France (3.9%), Iberia (2.9%), KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (2.3%), TAP Portugal (2.1%), Turkish Airlines (2%), Lufthansa (1.9%) and Emirates (1.6%).
The year 2022 confirmed the recovery of air freight. The annual tonnage of air and truck freight handled at Geneva Airport amounted to 70,566 tonnes, an increase of 18.7% compared to 2021. It is still 16.9% lower than in 2019, the year before the pandemic.
The 2022 annual report and financial statements will be made public on 28 March 2023.