Spain's Aena: seats offered by airlines in winter to exceed pre-pandemic levels

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's airport operator Aena said on Tuesday the number of seats airlines will offer to passengers for travel to Spain over the winter season is set to exceed the number in 2019-2020, the year before the pandemic.

Just before the summer, airlines had booked a capacity of 216 million passengers in Spain, 1.6% more than in 2019, as they sought to prepare for a tourism rebound after almost all travel restrictions were lifted.

The airport operator said it expected a similar uptick in winter, but did not give the exact number of seats it expected to be available.

In the first eight months of the year, Aena said the passenger traffic through Spanish airports increased 85.3% compared to the same period in 2019, with a total of 159 million travelers.

Although the number of foreign tourists visiting Spain this year remains below 2019 numbers, the operator said it would continue to give airlines incentives to bolster passenger traffic to pre-pandemic levels.

(Reporting by Corina Pons, editing by Inti Landauro and Louise Heavens)