By ETimes
The number of air passenger movements across all the country’s airports increased by 108.74% to 1.56 million in 2022 from 747,404 in 2021, with Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport getting the lion’s share ahead of other airports, latest report shows.
Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport, Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo International Airport, and Victoria Falls International Airport are the three international airports in Zimbabwe.
Kariba Airport, Buffalo Range Airport, Charles Prince Airport, Masvingo Airport, and Hwange Airport are Zimbabwe’s five domestic airports.
The Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (Zimstat) Transport Statistics Report: 2018–2022 shows that the number of passengers received by Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport surged by 97.3% to 1.15 million in 2022 from 586,320 in 2021.
Victoria Falls International Airport followed with 234,609 passengers in 2022, representing a 243.1% rise from 68,370 in 2021.
In third place on the list was Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo International Airport, which took 146,628 passengers in 2022, up from 80,290 passengers in 2021.
Other airports saw the number of passengers rise by 77.9% to 22,097 in 2022 from 12,424 in 2021.
“International air passengers accounted for more than eighty percent of the total air passengers during the period 2018 to 2022,” Zimstat said.
“All airports recorded continual decreases in the number of air transport passengers over the years 2018 to 2020. The improvement from 2021 saw Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo International Airport and Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport recording percentage increases in air passengers of 82.6% and 97.3% in 2022 when compared to 2021.”
For the period covering 2018–2022, it shows that the highest number of air passengers were last recorded in 2018, at 1.91 million. The least was recorded in 2020 at 431,975.
In 2022, international passengers accounted for 83.6% of the total, while domestic passengers claimed 16.4% – Harare