Almost 19 million passengers flew to or from one of the Netherlands’ five main airports in the second quarter of this year, which is almost a return to pre-coronavirus levels, national statistics agency CBS said on Wednesday.

Schiphol processed by far the most flights – some 115,000 in total – which is up 5.4% on the same period in 2022. Passenger numbers at the main airport were up 10% in the same quarter to 16.4 million.

At Eindhoven, the country’s second biggest airport in terms of passengers, numbers were up 6% at 1.9 million. At Maastricht Aachen airport, by contrast, passenger numbers were down 67% following the closure of the runway for renovations for most of the period.

In the second quarter, some 81 of every 100 seats on a plane leaving or arriving in the Netherlands were occupied, compared with 82 in 100 in 2019, before the pandemic struck, the CBS said.

Freight traffic was also up in terms of flights, but tonnage was down 8.7% compared with a year earlier. This too is largely down to the Maastricht runway closure.

Within the EU, only Charles de Gaulle airport near Paris processed more passengers than Schiphol last year, the CBS said. In total, the French airport handled 57.5 million passengers last year and Schiphol 52.5 million.