Croatia's airports handled 8.99 million passengers over the first nine months of 2018, an increase of 10.4 percent compared to the same period in 2017, a report released by the state statistics bureau said on Monday.

In September alone, the number of passengers passing through the country’s airports was 1.43 million, or 9.7 percent up from the same month last year.

Out of Croatia’s nine airports, the largest passenger traffic in September was recorded in Split Airport (453,000 passengers, or 8.1 percent up year-on-year), followed by Dubrovnik Airport (383,000, 10.5 percent up) and Zagreb Airport (343,000, or 4.4 percent up).

These were followed by Pula Airport (123,000 passengers, or 23 percent up), Zadar Airport (90,000, or 14.6 percent up) and Rijeka Airport (27,000 passengers, or 16.6 percent up).

This means that five out of the top six airports in terms of passenger traffic in September were located in coastal cities and towns, with the only exception being the one serving the country’s capital Zagreb.

The lowest volume of passenger traffic was at Osijek Airport (7,000 travellers, or 20.5 percent up), and the airports at the islands of Brac and Mali Losinj, (6,600 and 440 passengers, or 49 percent and 15.5 percent up respectively).

In terms of country of origin, the largest group were passengers from Germany, followed by travellers from the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

In terms of cargo traffic, the nine airports combined handled 1,218 tonnes of cargo in September (down by 2.9 percent year-on-year), and 9,119 tonnes in the entire January-September period, or 33.1 percent up from the same period last year.

Follow N1 via mobile apps for Android | iPhone/iPad | Windows| and social media on Twitter | Facebook.