Amman: The Kingdom’s three airports witnessed a surge in passenger traffic, reaching 9.53 million individuals in 2023, marking an 18% increase from the 8.08 million passengers recorded in the same period of 2022.

Captain Haitham Misto, Chief Commissioner of the Civil Aviation Regulatory Commission (CARC), revealed this record-breaking achievement in a press statement on Sunday. The growth was attributed to a total of 86,000 flights conducted by both national and foreign airlines, linking Jordan to 81 international destinations through direct flights.

Notably, Queen Alia International Airport accounted for 97% of the total operation, serving 9.5 million passengers. Key travel routes included Saudi Arabia with around 1.4 million passengers, the United Arab Emirates with 1.2 million, Turkey with 1.1 million, Egypt with 804,000, Qatar with 466,000, and the United States with 438,000.

At the King Hussein International Airport in Aqaba, 309,000 passengers traveled, with 109,000 moving between Amman and Aqaba. Th
e most frequented destinations from Aqaba were the United Arab Emirates – Abu Dhabi (28,000 passengers), Warsaw in Poland (20,000 passengers), Cairo in Egypt (16,500 passengers), and Sofia in Bulgaria to Aqaba (13,500 passengers). Istanbul, Turkey, ranked fifth with 13,000 passengers.

Meanwhile, Amman Civil Airport witnessed 10,435 passengers through small private aircraft flights.

Misto highlighted an 82% increase in the air transit rate of aircraft crossing Jordanian airspace compared to 2019, with approximately 86,000 aircraft crossing the airspace in 2023, compared to 47,000 in 2019.

Source: Jordan News Agency