Passenger transport in Portugal continued to grow in the summer of 2023. National airports handled 20.9 million passengers between July and September this year, 13.1 percent more than in the same period last year. Also, train users rose 19.1 percent year-on-year to 53.2 million passengers.

According to statistics on transport activity, 20.9 million passengers were counted at airports between July and September, corresponding to a growth of 13.1 percent compared to the same period in 2022 (+14.9 percent in the second quarter and +11.3 percent compared to the third quarter of 2019), the National Statistics Institute (INE) said this Wednesday (6 December). In other words, air passenger transport continued to grow, but less intensely than in the previous quarter.

In the case of trains, 53.2 million passengers travelled by train in the third quarter, 19.1 percent more than in the same period of 2022. This is an increase of 12.8 percent compared to the second quarter of 2023 and 15.3 percent compared to the quarter of 2019, before the pandemic.

The metro transported 63.7 million passengers in that period, a year-on-year rise of 16.2 percent (it had risen 18 percent in the second quarter) and a drop of 1.8 percent compared to the same quarter in 2019. INE, therefore, concludes that "railway transport was boosted by the increase in suburban traffic".