Batumi International Airport: One of Europe’s fastest growing small-time airports

Batumi International Airport on Georgia’s Black Sea coast is one of the fastest growing smaller airports in Europe, latest figures show.

Airports Council International Europe (ACI EUROPE), which represents over 500 small-time airports in 45 European countries, published a list of the fastest growing airports (in terms of passenger growth) that served less than five million passengers per year.

The 'ACI EUROPE Airport Traffic Report - September & Q3 2016' showed Batumi International Airport shared the leading position with four other small airports in Europe who all had the highest reported increase in passenger traffic during September 2016.

The report surveyed 234 airports, representing more than 88 percent of European air passenger traffic.

Batumi Airport was included in the fourth group alongside Romania's Oradea and Iasi airports, Lithuania's Palanga airport and Ukraine's Kharkiv airport (+57.5%). Image by TAV Georgia. 

The ACI EUROPE report divided airports into various categories: airports welcoming more than 25 million passengers per year (Group 1), airports welcoming between 10 and 25 million passengers (Group 2), airports welcoming between five and 10 million passengers (Group 3) and airports welcoming less than five million passengers per year (Group 4).

Batumi Airport (+52.5%) was included in the fourth group together with Romania's Oradea (+6,189.5%) and Iasi (+151.0%), Lithuania's Palanga (+69.4%) and Ukraine's Kharkiv (+57.5%).

Meanwhile TAV Georgia, the operator of Georgia’s two main airports in Tbilisi and Batumi said Batumi International Airport served 51,654 passengers in September 2016, which was a 52.5 percent increase year-on-year.