Entebbe International Airport recorded 149,375 passengers in January 2023 compared to 1,802,107 passengers the airport recorded in 2019 -representing a recovery rate of 87 per cent ever since the pandemic broke out.
According to the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA) the total number of arriving and departing passengers drastically dropped following the break out of Covid-19 in 2020 to 565,541 but has been exponentially rising since 2021 from 941,688 and 1,574,405 in 2022.
As international travel came to a near complete standstill in 2020, the aviation industry suffered what it describes as “the worst year in history for air travel demand”.
According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), global passenger traffic as measured in revenue passenger kilometers declined by 65.9 percent in 2020 compared to 2019, as international passenger demand dropped 75.6 percent and domestic demand fell 48.8 percent below 2019 levels.
UCAA Spokesperson Mr. Vianney Luggya says the airport recorded an average of 4,818 per day in January 2023 making it 149,375 passengers that month (72,934 arriving and 76,441 departing passengers) compared to a total of 110,547 passengers in the same period the previous year 2022.
In Dec 2022, Luggya also says the airport recorded 156,790 passengers compared to 123,576 in the same period of Dec 2021.
In relation to cargo, CAA reported that the airport recorded a decline in volume in January 2023; 5,014 metric tones (imports 1,752 and exports 3,262) compared to a total of 61,066 tones in 2022, 64,172 tones in 2021, 59,720 tones in 2020 and 64,701 tones in 2019.
In January 2023, records however show that there are more exports than imports.
