This figure represents a 3.9% year-on-year increase, driven by record monthly highs in the first three months of the year, the INE announced.

Main markets

According to the “Rapid Air Transport Statistics” from the National Institute of Statistics (INE), the United Kingdom was the main country of origin and destination for flights in the first quarter of this year, with the number of passengers disembarking from this country increasing by 3.9% and the number of passengers embarking by 1.4%.

Spain and France occupied, respectively, the second and third positions among the countries of origin, alternating in the order of destination countries. Behind them were Germany in fourth position and Brazil in fifth position in both rankings.

Steady growth

In the first three months of the year, Lisbon airport handled 54.2% of total passengers, amounting to 7.9 million passengers and a year-on-year growth of 3.1%.

Porto airport handled 3.5 million passengers in that period (24.0% of the total and 8.3% more than a year ago) and Faro airport 1.3 million passengers (8.8% of the total, 2.4% more).

In the first quarter, the INE also reports a 0.3% decrease in cargo and mail traffic at national airports.

Cargo traffic at Lisbon airport represented 77.0% of the total, reaching 46,200 tons (1.4% less than in the same period of 2025). Across all other airports, cargo and mail traffic grew by 3.6%.

Considering only the month of March 2026, 19,400 aircraft landed at national airports on commercial flights, corresponding to 5.6 million passengers (embarkations, disembarkations and direct transits), and 22,800 tons of cargo and mail were handled (+3.6%, +4.3% and -0.1%, respectively, compared to March 2025).

In the previous month, variations of +0.7%, +3.3%, and +0.6% were recorded in that order.

After historical highs recorded in January and February, "March once again reached a new historical record in the number of passengers handled at national airports".

On average, this represented the daily disembarkation of 92,000 passengers, "above the 88,200 recorded in March 2025", representing a growth of 4.4%.

International traffic

In March 2026, 83.4% of passengers disembarking at national airports corresponded to international traffic, reaching 2.4 million (+5.5%), mostly from the European continent (66.7% of the total), a year-on-year growth of 5.5%.

The American continent was the second-largest origin, accounting for 10.3% of total disembarking passengers (+13.5%).

Regarding embarking passengers, 82.8% corresponded to international traffic, totalling 2.3 million passengers (+5.1%), with 69.1% of the total departing from airports in the European continent, 4.0% more than in March 2025.

Airports in the American continent were the second-largest destination for departing passengers (9.5% of the total; +15.2%).