Santiago-Rosalía de Castro Airport: A Kid-Friendly Look at June Travel Numbers

What Is This About?

Imagine a big station where airplanes pick up and drop off people — that’s an airport! In the region of Galicia (in Spain), there are three such stations. This article explains how many people traveled through them in June, and why some numbers went up and down, using super simple words.

Santiago Airport’s June Story

The Santiago-Rosalía de Castro Airport had:

• 277,649 passengers (that means people who flew in or out) in June.
• This is 10.5% less than the same month last year (June 2025).
• But wait — it was a massive comeback compared to May! In May, only 31,594 people traveled.

Why Was May So Quiet? (A Simple Timeline)

Think of the airport like a toy track that needed to be fixed:

1. From April 23 to May 27, workers fixed the “runway” — the long strip where planes take off and land.
2. Because the runway was closed, the terminal (the building where people wait) was also closed.
3. With everything shut, very few planes could visit, so only 31,594 travelers used the airport in May.

New Flights, But Still a Drop

Even though the airport opened fun new international routes (like adding new stops on a map):

• New York with United Airlines
• Cork with Air Lingus
• Amsterdam with KLM
• Marrakech with Vueling

These new connections were not enough to fill the gap left by a big change: last October (2025), the airline Ryanair closed its “operating base” there. A base is like an airline’s home garage where they keep planes and start many trips. Losing it meant fewer flights overall.

Important: Despite the cool new routes, June 2026 had 10.5% fewer passengers than June 2025 because Ryanair’s base closure took away many flights.

What About the Other Two Airports?

Galicia has two other airports, and Santiago’s reopening affected them a bit:

• Alvedro (A Coruña) Airport: Had a little over 107,000 passengers, which is 1.5% less than last year.
• Vigo (Peinador) Airport: Moved 93,982 passengers. That’s 0.5% more than June 2025, but 19,197 fewer than in May (when Santiago was closed and some travelers used Vigo instead).

The Whole Galician Picture

When we add all three airports together for June:

• Total passengers: 479,430 (that’s 139,522 more than in May!)
• Plane movements (takeoffs + landings): 4,952
• Cargo (stuff carried in planes): 309 tons

And from January to June this year (the “year so far”):

• Total passengers: 2,203,812
• Total aircraft movements: 22,756

Summary

In June, Santiago airport bounced back from a May shutdown for runway fixes, welcoming over 277,000 passengers. New routes to New York, Cork, Amsterdam, and Marrakech are exciting, but they couldn’t make up for Ryanair leaving last fall. Nearby airports in A Coruña and Vigo saw small changes. Together, Galicia’s three airports served nearly half a million people in June, showing travel is healing after the works.

FAQ

1. Why did Santiago airport have so few passengers in May?
Because the runway was closed for construction from April 23 to May 27, forcing the terminal to shut down. Only 31,594 people could travel then.

2. What does “Ryanair closed its base” mean?
A base is like a home hub where an airline keeps planes and runs many flights. When Ryanair closed its base in October 2025, the airport lost a lot of regular flights.

3. Did the new routes help the passenger numbers?
They added some new travelers, but not enough to offset the loss from Ryanair. Total June passengers were still 10.5% lower than the previous year.

4. How many airports are there in Galicia, and what are their names?
There are three: Santiago-Rosalía de Castro, Alvedro (A Coruña), and Vigo (Peinador).