France’s Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport served 8,562,298 passengers in 2013, an institutional best, with a 1.3% year-on-year traffic increase.
The number of domestic passengers remained stable, and the 3.3% increase in Paris flights compensated the 0.7% dip in regional French routes.
A significant growth was seen across larger cross-country connections such as Nantes (up 2.2% to 344,868 passengers), Nice (up 4% to 233,559 passengers) and Biarritz (up 7.2% to 114,014 passengers).
Overall passenger traffic was primarily driven by international connections, which recorded a 2.6% increase year-over-year. Overseas flights accounted for 5,394,873 passengers and represented 63% of total traffic.
European connections accounted for 3,542,724 passengers, and were driven by the doubling of routes to Barcelona, and flights to new destinations such as Seville.
Portugal recorded a 10.2% increase in passenger numbers due to its low-cost range, while passenger numbers from UK flights were up by 9.8% by the end of the year.

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By GlobalDataPassenger numbers to Turkey and Greece increased by 23.2%, while Istanbul, Morocco and Algeria recorded increases of 23.1%, 0.5%, and 8.9% respectively.
Passengers to Germany, Belgium and Italy declined by 3.4%, 2.1% and 6.3% respectively.
Barcelona was the leading international destination with 293,732 passengers, ahead of London (271, 007) and Frankfurt (268, 952).
The quantity of freight and air mail transported increased 22.7% to 44,820.2t; air freight transport rose 26.5% to 42,159.8t; air mail cargo dropped by 16.8% to 2,660.3t; and integrators represented 33, 810t, up by 12.3%.
Mixed freight rose 129% to 6,740t, while cargo soared 400% to 1,609t.
The number of aircraft movements continued to decrease with 113,420 total movements, down by 2.8% from 2012; however, both passenger numbers and air freight registered 1.3% and 22.7% increase respectively.
Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport is an important transport facility for the Rhône-Alpes region.
Image: The passenger traffic at Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport was primarily driven by international connections, which recorded a 2.6% increase year-over-year. Photo: courtesy of Benreis.