UK flights account for 16.5% of arrivals in Spain in May

Spain’s airports are already registering record passenger numbers, and summer has only just begun.

The Brexit chatter may be reaching fever pitch, but whatever the outcome of next week’s EU Referendum, one thing remains certain – Brits cannot get enough of Spain.

As the debate on the UK’s future with the EU has become increasingly couched in terms of accusations of xenophobia and a general distrust of ‘Europe’, data from the Spanish International Tourist Industry has served as a timely reminder of Brits’ love affair with Spain…

According to the figures, 16.5% of all passengers at Spanish airports in May were flying to and from UK airports, helping to boost overall passenger numbers for the month by 11.3% over the preceding month. Overall, 13.43 million Brits passed through Spanish airports in the first five months of the year.

In terms of annual increases, Spanish airports were 11.9% busier this May than last May, which strongly suggests that the country is on course to smash tourism records set in 2015.

Over the course of the first five months of the year, air traffic at Spain’s 16 busiest airports has been significantly higher, with Barcelona’s El Prat airport welcoming more than 16 million passengers over that period – a 13.4% increase on 2015.

Madrid’s Barajas airport was equally busy – with 19.2 million people passing through – while Málaga’s airport recorded 5.7 million passengers for the period. Nationwide, May saw more than 20.8 million people passing through Spanish airport terminals – which is a record for the month, surpassing the previous high of May 2008.

Aside from Spain’s ever-increasing popularity, airport management company Aena said that this boost in traveller numbers is also the result of cheaper fuel – meaning flight costs have fallen – and the ongoing instability in traditional rival destinations such as Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia.

With Brits the most popular visit, however, it is clear that this increase in passenger numbers is largely tourism-driven. Behind the Brits, Germans accounted for 11.5% of international flight tourists in the first five months of the year, followed by Italians and the French.