Azeri capital’s airport served almost 900,000 passengers in 1Q 2018

85.6 per cent of all passenger traffic travelled on international flights through Baku (Yusif)

Baku’s Heydar Aliyev International Airport served more than 897,000 passengers in the first three months of 2018, a 15 per cent improvement over the same period last year.

Major contributors to the improvement, collectively delivering 52 per cent of the traffic at the Azerbaijan capital airport, were national air carrier Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) and its low-cost subsidiary Buta Airways, which carried 362,000 and 104,000 passengers respectively.

During the three-month period, some 768,000 passengers (85.6 per cent of all passenger traffic) travelled on international flights through Baku.

Currently, 30 airlines serve 52 destinations from Heydar Aliyev International Airport, with the top-10 most popular routes being Istanbul, Moscow, Dubai, Kiev, Doha, Sharjah, Tbilisi, Baghdad, Tehran and St Petersburg. More than 597,000 passengers travelled to these destinations in January-March.

A recent, important and prestigious addition to the airport’s roster started in March, when Etihad Airways launched direct, scheduled flights from Abu Dhabi to Baku.

Total passenger flow at Baku airport reached 4.02 million in 2017, or 23% up year-on-year.