The United Kingdom remained Portugal’s largest international market, while France recorded the sharpest decline among the nation’s main source and destination markets.

National network

According to figures released by the National Statistics Institute (INE), passenger numbers between January and April increased by 3.3 percent compared with the same period in 2025, reaching over 21.1 million travellers.

Lisbon Airport continued to dominate the national network, accounting for 52 percent of all movements, and handled around 11 million passengers during the four-month period, which represents a year-on-year growth of 2.6 percent.

Porto Airport welcomed 5.1 million passengers, equivalent to 24 percent of the total, while posting the highest growth among the three largest airports at 7.6 percent.

Furthermore, Faro Airport recorded 2.3 million passengers, an increase of 3.1 percent, representing 11 percent of overall traffic.

During the fourth month alone, Portuguese airports handled 6.6 million passengers, up 2.1 percent compared with the same month last year, as the number of commercial aircraft landings reached 22,200, marking a 0.7 percent increase year-on-year.

Passenger movements

The vast majority of passenger movements was attributed to international traffic, which accounted for 83.5 percent of arrivals, totalling 2.8 people, a rise of 3 percent from April 2025.

Europe remained the principal source market, accounting for 69.6 percent of arrivals, while passenger volumes from the Americas grew by 9.4 percent, representing 9.3 percent of the total.

On departures, international traffic represented 83.1 percent of passengers, with 2.7 million travellers boarding flights abroad. The EU was yet again the leading destination, attracting 70.6 percent of outbound passengers and recording growth of 5.2 percent, while the Americas ranked second, accounting for 8.4 percent of departures and increasing by 2.6 percent.

Average daily arrivals also edged higher during the month, reaching 111,800 passengers per day, compared with 109,900 in April 2025.

Aviation market

The UK retained its position as Portugal’s leading aviation market between January and April, both as a source and destination country, with passenger numbers totalling approximately 1.296 million in each direction, representing annual growth of 3.3 percent for arrivals and 3.4 percent for departures.

France remained Portugal’s second-largest market but experienced the most significant decline among the leading countries, with arriving passenger numbers falling by 8.7 percent and departing passengers down 7.8 percent.

Spain ranked third, recording growth of 7.9 percent for arrivals and 7.6 percent for departures, followed by Germany, where traffic increased by around 2 percent in both directions.

Lastly, Brazil completed the top five inbound markets, delivering particularly strong growth of 20.2 percent in arriving passengers, while Italy rounded out the five largest outbound destinations from Portugal.