Spanish airport traffic reached 88.5% of pre-pandemic levels last year, airport operator Aena said Tuesday, a level slightly above its most recent forecast.

After a slow start to the year with some pandemic-related restrictions still in place, passenger numbers gradually recovered and were almost back to normal in December, at 98.1% of the same month in 2019, Aena said in a statement.

The company had said in November that it expected passenger traffic at its terminals to reach 87% of pre-pandemic levels by 2022 and surpass them by 2024.

That would be a year ahead of the pan-European recovery forecast for 2025 last month by ACI Europe, the body representing European airports.

A total of 243 million passengers transited Spanish airports in 2022. The busiest airport was Madrid's Adolfo Suárez Barajas, although the biggest spikes were recorded at the Canary Islands and Balearic Islands airports.

In terms of cargo, more than one million tons were transported in 2022 across the entire Aena network, 6.5% less than in 2019.

(Reporting by Matteo Allievi, editing by Inti Landauro, Kirsten Donovan, edited in Spanish by José Muñoz in the Gdansk newsroom).