The activity at Rafic Hariri International Airport improved in the first 2 months of the year 2022. Consequently, the number of Beirut’s International airport passengers went up by 98.70%, as it recorded 691,226 passengers by February 2022 compared to 347,871 passengers during the same period last year.
The breakdown of the airport’s statistics revealed that total arrivals added 132.91% year-on-year (YOY) to hit 313,200 by February 2022. By the same token, the number of departing passengers climbed by a yearly 85.04% to reach 373,561 over the same period. Nevertheless, transit passengers decreased from 11,519 by February 2021 to 4,460 passengers by February 2022. Important to note, in the first two months of the year 2021, Lebanon was on lockdown due to Covid-19, that’s why we witnessed a massive increase in the volumes of passengers in the first two months of 2022 compared to the same period last year.
In addition, data on occupancy as per E&Y benchmark survey revealed that the occupancy rate in Beirut’s 4- and 5-star hotels reached 42.3% by December 2021, up from last year’s registered 17.5% during the same period. Furthermore, the average room rate has increased by 485% from $200 in December 2020 to $1,260 in December 2021. However, the increase is inflated by valuing the room rates at the official exchange rate of LBP 1,500 for USD, while the black market was approximately LBP/USD 28,000 in December 2021.
Beirut’s Airport Activity By February
