Travelers to the BES islands increased in 2022.
In 2022, more than 475 thousand travelers passed through Bonaire, Saba and St Eustatius airports. This is nearly 64 percent more than in 2021 and 4 percent more than in 2019. The number of aircraft movements to and from these airports was almost 14 percent higher than in 2021. Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reports this based on newly released figures.
The highest number of passengers traveling to and from the three airports of the Caribbean Netherlands was recorded in July and December 2022: 45 thousand in both months. The busiest day was Saturday, February 19, 2022, when 2.5 thousand passengers passed through the terminals of Flamingo Airport on Bonaire, F.D. Roosevelt Airport on St Eustatius, and Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport on Saba.
Most passengers flying to and from Bonaire
In 2022, nearly 432 thousand travelers arrived at or departed from Flamingo Airport on Bonaire, i.e. 91 percent of all passengers in the Caribbean Netherlands. For the airports of St Eustatius and Saba, this was 5 and 4 percent, respectively. The runway at Flamingo Airport on Bonaire is 3 km long, which makes it possible for larger aircraft to land. The runways on Saba and St Eustatius are shorter, which is why the aircraft for these islands are smaller.
Air passenger traffic on Bonaire.
Compared to the pre-pandemic year 2019, 4 percent more passengers traveled to and from the islands of the Caribbean Netherlands in 2022. These additional passengers all traveled to and from Bonaire, representing an increase of more than 12 percent (from 384 thousand passengers in 2019 to 432 thousand in 2022). During the previous year, the number of flights to and from Bonaire was far below the level of 2019.
Bonaire’s airport fourth largest in the Netherlands in 2022.
Nearly 11.2 thousand flights were operated at Flamingo Airport on Bonaire in 2022. This puts Bonaire in fourth place among Dutch airports after Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Eindhoven Airport and Rotterdam The Hague Airport. This also applies to the number of passengers carried.
(Source: cbs.nl)
