Prague

Low-cost airlines raised passenger numbers at the Prague-Ruzyne airport by more than one-fifth to 2.8 million in 2007, Eva Krejci, spokeswoman of the Letiste Praha company which runs the airport, said.

Low-cost airlines had a 22.4 percent market share in Prague last year, up by 2.4 percentage point. Overall, the airport cleared a record 12.4 million passengers.

Two low-cost carriers ranked among the top five airlines at the Prague airport last year. Britain’s easyJet came third with 977,000 passengers, followed by Slovakia’s SkyEurope with 599,000 passengers.

Besides, around one-quarter of clients of Czech airline Travel Service, which came second with 1,095,000 passengers, used its low-cost airlines run under the SmartWings brand.

Most passengers however fly from or to Prague with traditional airlines which control 63 percent of the market; the rest is made up of charter flights.

The Czech Airlines CSA came first with 5.2 million passengers at the Prague airport last year, while Germany’s Lufthansa with 566,000 passengers came fifth with 566,000 passengers.

The biggest share of passengers (90 percent) uses flights within Europe. Among the most popular are flights to or from Britain (1,950,029 passengers) and Germany (1,127,128 passengers).

Italy came as the third most popular destination with 905,061 passengers, followed by France (803,794) and Spain (660,021).

An increasingly more popular destination is Africa, above all Egypt and Tunisia, where passenger numbers grew by nearly 15 percent.

The Prague airport ranks among medium-sized European airports. The total number of passengers at the airport is increasing every year. Since 2002, the figure has doubled.

This year, the airport could clear 13 million passengers, according to estimates of its managers.

The state-run airport will change into a joint-stock company this year, which the state wants to sell by year-end. The government could get Kc80bn-Kc100bn from the privatisation.

In 2006, Letiste Praha made profit worth Kc1bn. In the first half of 2007, profit amounted to Kc654m.

(Czech News Agency)

Bookmark: