The Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) had a record year last year, in terms of the numbers of passengers who passed through its airports. This was revealed on Tuesday when it published its latest 'Aviation Barometer' report. This is the fourth edition of the report, which is compiled from official ACSA statistics. The number of passengers that used its nine airports last year came to 39.7-million, an increase of 5.4% over the figure for 2015.

The company’s three major airports all hit new levels of usage. King Shaka International Airport, serving Durban, saw the greatest increase, at 8.45% over 2015, exceeding five-million passengers last year. Cape Town International Airport experienced growth of 7.3%, reaching 10-million passengers. OR Tambo International Airport, serving Johannesburg, had a 3.8% increase, handling more than 20-million passengers.

The report divided air travel into three categories: domestic, regional and international. Domestic obviously refers to flights within South Africa, while regional covers flights to and from Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland. International covers all other flights across South Africa’s borders.

Domestic travel through ACSA’s airports saw a 5.3% increase last year in comparison to 2015. Oddly enough, while domestic arrivals came to 13.6-million people, domestic departures totalled 13.7-million.

Regional travel enjoyed a 6% increase in arrivals, amounting to 567 254 passengers, while departures came to 565 702, or an increase of 6.4%. International arrivals saw a 5.3% rise, to 5.4-million people, and international departures were up by 5.8% to 5.5-million.

“Airports Company South Africa broke records and achieved a historic milestone in 2016 … passing the 39-million passenger mark for the year,” stated the report. It described the increase in international departures as “notable” and described the regional business as “healthy”.