February 22 (SeeNews) - The airport of Tirana served 652,270 passengers in January, up from 413,569 in the prior-year period, figures published by the airport operator Tirana International Airport (TIA) show.
In terms of destinations, London topped the list with 52,990 passengers, closely followed by Bergamo, Rome, and Bologna, TIA said in a monthly report earlier this week.
The airport of Tirana also for the first time surpassed the monthly numbers of Serbia’s Belgrade airport, which served 569,572 passengers in January, TIA said in a social media post.
Foreign tourist arrivals to Albania reached 490,000 in January, an increase from 377,211 in the same month of the previous year, prime minister Edi Rama said earlier in February.
The airport of Tirana is expected to serve 8.4 million passengers in 2024, Maksim Et’hemaj, director of Albania’s civil aviation authority AAC, told local media last month. The airport is currently expanding to accommodate a new base of Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair as well as future bases of transcontinental lines.
In 2023, the airport of Tirana welocmed 7.26 million passengers, 40% more than a year earlier.