Prague’s Václav Havel Airport exceeded the ten million passengers carried this year over the weekend. Last year, the number was 4.4 million people for the whole year. The number of take-offs and landings reached about 490,000, which was at 60 percent of the pre-festival year of 2019, announced Transport Minister Martin Kupka (ODS) at a press conference.
For this year, Prague Airport expects 10.7 million passengers, two million more than originally planned. The reason for this was the rapid lifting of the coronavirus measures, which had a more 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 be in profit this year, with operating profit expected to be around CZK 2 billion. “We expect 12.7 million passengers next year,” Pos said. He said the company expects a better first quarter, which will not be dampened by the epidemic restrictions. He is rather conservative on holiday traffic because of the economic situation, he said.
Air Traffic Control will also end this year in the black. According to CEO Jan Klas, after adopting a number of austerity measures in the past two years, the company is looking forward to stabilising its new traffic management system next year. “We are expecting a slight increase in traffic in flights and at airports,” Klas added.
Kupka said the transport ministry is in talks with several carriers about returning or increasing their traffic to Prague. Among others, it is negotiating with companies from Qatar, Canada and Korean Air could return during the summer season.
Next year, the ministry plans to move ahead with the preparation of a parallel runway in Prague, where it expects a non-final decision to be issued, and to start work on a rail link between the airport and the centre of Prague. It also wants to strengthen activities at regional airports, for example in České Budějovice. It also intends to develop activities at the Czech Aviation Training Centre, which was originally offered for sale but no buyer was found at the expected price.
Both air traffic controllers and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) have to cope with a large increase in drone traffic. There are currently over 40,000 drones in the country, according to UCA director David Jagr.
Source: CTK
