2016 was a record year for air traffic
More Israelis travel abroad, but fewer tourists are coming to visit
Statistics released on Sunday by the Israel Airports Authority reveal that 2016 was another record-breaking year for international air traffic and travel from Ben-Gurion Airport.
More than 17 million travelers passed through Ben-Gurion over the year for more than 110,000 incoming and outgoing international flights. More than 600,000 flew through the airport on domestic flights. This 11% increase in travelers compared to last year amounts to more than 1.6 million additional individuals passing through Ben-Gurion.
“The phenomenal increase in traffic through Ben-Gurion now necessitates us to make further investments and improvements to our infrastructure,” Ben-Gurion Airport director-general Shmuel Zakai said on Sunday. “By the summer of 2017 we will open Terminal 1 to full activity to facilitate this trend.”
The IAA press release that accompanied the data credits this expansion in Ben-Gurion’s international activity to Transportation Minister Israel Katz’s Open Skies policy.
“I am proud of my contribution to one of the biggest consumer revolutions in Israel in the last few years,” Katz said on Sunday. “These end-ofyear data prove that the Open Skies reforms that I led have brought a decrease in the prices of travel abroad. This allows more and more Israelis from all social strata to fly abroad with attractive prices.”
Katz signed the Open Skies agreement with the European Union in 2012 to attract more airlines to Israel and increase competition in the field of air travel. It has gradually started going into effect since 2013, canceling previous limitations on the amount of carriers allowed to operate in Israel, flight frequencies and limitations on specific airplanes that were previously not allowed to operate through Israel to protect local carriers.
Today, Ben-Gurion Airport services more than 100 carriers that fly to 135 destinations around the world.
According to the IAA statistics, the increase in traffic from Ben-Gurion stems from the increase in Israeli travelers, who account for more than 70% of all individuals passing through the airport this year.
Foreign nationals, however, assumed to be tourists by the IAA statistics, account for about 30% of all travelers going through the airport. IAA’s data does not make a distinction between foreign nationals entering Israel and those who only come through Ben-Gurion on a connecting flight.
Either way, according to Zakai, this number is a five-year record low in foreign nationals’ traffic through the airport.
According to the data, the No. 1 country in terms of traffic during 2016 was Turkey with nearly 10% of all incoming and outgoing traffic. However, most of the travelers travel to Turkey to catch a cheaper connecting flight to a different final destination.
The second-busiest country is the United States with 1.45 million travelers coming and going. Following the US, the IAA recorded 1.5 million coming and going to Italy, 1.2 million to and from Germany and 1 million travelers each for France and Russia.
The year also was a record year for low-cost airlines in Ben-Gurion, with 12% of all air traffic carried out by low-cost carriers. Adding Israeli operators of low-cost flights – Up, Arkia and Israir – to the calculation, then the number rises to almost 20%.
The No. 1 low-cost airline is EasyJet, which is now the third-busiest airline with 719,000 passengers, behind Turkish Airlines with 932,000 and El Al with 5.5 million.
Another upward trend that the IAA pointed to is the increase in automated check-ins by passengers. This year, 36% of all Ben-Gurion outgoing travelers completed their check-in online before arriving at the airport, and 9% completed their check-in at Ben-Gurion using the computerized check-in stations spread around the terminals. Among the travelers using low-cost carriers, 90% made an automated check-in online.
“Ben-Gurion has gone through a revolution in regards to the self-reliant and independent check-in process,” Zakai said. “We will continue to encourage passengers to complete the check-in themselves and save time in lines and long security checks.”