More than 470,000 passengers travelled to and from Larnaca and Paphos airports in January, 250,000 more than in January 2022.

In a statement, Hermes Airports said the number corresponds to 112 per cent of the passenger traffic of January 2019, a record year.

According to the data, 328,029 passengers travelled to and from Larnaca airport in January, with the largest traffic coming from Greece, the UK, Israel, Poland and Germany. Compared with January 2022, traffic was up by 105.6 per cent.

In Paphos 142,972 passengers travelled to and from the airport in January, coming mainly from the UK, Israel, Poland, Greece and Germany. This was 125 per cent up on the same month in 2022.

For the period November 2022 through to May 2023, around 400,000 additional seats have been added to flights to and from Cyprus compared with 2019, “which confirms the optimism of the airlines for an even greater number of arrivals, both during the current winter season and in general”, Hermes said.

Maria Kouroupi, the operator’s senior director of aviation development, marketing and communication said: “2023 started with a very good performance and this is the result of the effort made in recent years to strengthen the winter flight schedule, which this year has increased flights, even compared to 2019. This certainly helps to increase tourist arrivals, while we are also seeing an increase in Cypriot travel during this period.”

Hermes remains optimistic that as long as there will be no setback from external factors, as were seen in previous years with the pandemic and last year with the Ukraine war, then passenger traffic would continue this year on a positive path.

“Already the messages we are receiving are encouraging, while the ambitious programme with many new destinations and the reinforcement of existing itineraries that the airlines we work with have drawn up for the current year, also point in this direction,” she added.