Lisbon, Feb. 12, 2026 (Lusa) - The number of passengers travelling through Portugal's airports is expected to have increased by 4.7% in 2025, to 73.75 million, according to preliminary data from the National Statistics Institute (INE) released on Thursday.

Last year's growth was higher than the 4.3% year-on-year increase seen in 2024.

Last year, 255,704 commercial aircraft landed at Portuguese airports, representing an increase of 4.0% (compared to a 0.9% increase in 2024).

Cargo and mail traffic fell by 0.5% compared to the previous year, against a rise of 14.2%, to 253,611 tonnes.

Lisbon airport handled 49.0% of total passengers (36.1 million), an increase of 2.9% compared to 2024, while Porto airport handled 23.0% of passengers (up 6.3%) and Faro airport handled 10.4 million (14.1% share and an increase of 5.8%).

In 2025, the five main countries of origin and destination remained unchanged from the previous year, with the United Kingdom standing out (up 2.4% in disembarking passengers and 2.2% in embarking passengers).

Despite a 2.3% reduction in disembarking passengers and 1.9% in embarking passengers, France remained in second place.

Spain, Germany and Italy remained in third, fourth and fifth place, respectively.

Lisbon airport accounted for 77.4% of the total cargo and mail handled in 2025, with 196,405 tonnes - down 1.0% compared to 2024 - while the rest saw an increase of 1.2% to 57,203 tonnes.

In an analysis of December alone, it was found that national airports handled 4.9 million passengers and 20,200 tonnes of cargo and mail, corresponding to a 4.6% increase in passenger volume and an 8.8% decrease in cargo handled, when compared to the same month in 2024.

"Throughout 2025, there were record monthly highs in the number of passengers handled at national airports, with the exception of February," said INE, pointing out that in the last month of the year, there was an average daily arrival of around 82,100 passengers, 5.2% more than in December 2024 (78,000).

JO/AYLS // AYLS

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