Nearly 880 million people travelled by air in the European Union in 2014, a far higher number than the 503 million who reside in the EU.
This represented an increase of 4.4% over 2013 and 17% over 2009.
Of the passengers, 44% flew within EU countries, 38% flew into or out of the EU, while 18% flew within one country.
One out of every four passengers was recorded in the UK where the total air passengers numbered 220 million, the most of any country.
Germany followed (186 million passengers), then Spain (165 million), France (142 million) and Italy (121 million).
Portugal weighed in with 32.5 million which represented an increase of nearly 10% from 2013. Just about 3 million of these passengers took internal flights with another 6 million arriving from or departing to locations outside the EU.
The bulk of passengers to Portugal were from other EU countries, amounting to almost 23.5 million.
Greece saw the most significant increase in travel, an impressive 16%.
Eurostat also reported that during 2014, there were 3 people killed in commercial air transport, making a total of 77 in all since 2009.
Heathrow remained the EU’s busiest airport handling 73.4 million passengers. Charles de Gaulle dealt with 64 million, followed by Frankfurt’s 59 million, Amsterdam’s 55 million leaving Madrid in fifth position having handled 41.5 million.
Lisbon’s 18 million passengers, an increase of 13% in the year, landed the airport in 22nd rank. This was just behind Stanstead (20million) and ahead of Luton (10.5 million).
Faro was not in the top 30 airports, so its ranking was not listed.
