The passenger traffic in Minsk National Airport grew by eight times in August over April 2020, BelTA learned from the press service of the airport.

“On average, the airport handles 65-75 passenger flights a day. In April 2020, this figure did not exceed 38 flights,” the press service noted.

In April, due to the unstable epidemiological situation, the passenger traffic fell by 93% over the same period of last year and the number of flights went down by 83%. Since then, the airport has gradually grown busier with every month. For example, the airport served almost 38,000 passengers in May, which was 72% up over the previous month, 74,000 in June and over 146,000 in July.

The number of flights also went up in the summer. In April, the airport handled 357 aircraft, in June this number rose to 579, and in July to 1,008. In August 2020, Minsk National Airport saw eight times as many passengers as in April (more than 176,000), and three times as many passenger flights (1,136).

Foreign airlines continue resuming regular flights to Minsk National Airport after the forced suspension due to the coronavirus pandemic. As of now, six foreign airlines have already resumed regular flights to Minsk, including Iraqi Airways, Turkish Airlines, Uzbekistan Airways, the German airline Lufthansa, the UAE airline Etihad Airlines, and LOT Polish Airlines. AIR China continued flying to Minsk during the pandemic.

The Belarusian air carrier Belavia has operated flights to countries that remained open to air traffic since the start of the pandemic and has started re-introducing regular flights to some destinations (35 destinations so far).

The frequency of flights has also increased, as Belavia started operating charter flights to Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, Albania, Montenegro, and Bulgaria.