Freetown airport traffic statistics: passengers and flights

The latest figures

In January 2026 Premier Media, as reported by Matthew Bakarr, published official figures from the Sierra Leone Civil Aviation Authority, crediting Calabash as its source ¹. They showed 268,929 passengers at Freetown International Airport in 2025 and 250,606 in 2024, an increase of 18,323 ¹. The same report said there were more than 2,000 airline movements in 2025 ¹.

An undated article on the Ministry of Information and Civic Education website gives the same two totals as total passenger movements and puts the rise at 7% ². It says traffic grew for a third year in a row and that December was the busiest month, with over 29,000 passengers ². It does not name the years for the two totals ².

SLCAA Director General Musayeroh Barrie said passenger growth of this kind showed renewed confidence in the country's skies, as reported by Premier Media ¹.

Figures by year

This table lists every traffic figure found for this page, with the body that gave it ^1,34. Figures from different sources may count passengers in different ways.

Older figures

An undated Logistics Cluster assessment of the airport gives 227,649 passengers and 3,003 aircraft movements for 2013 ³. By its own breakdown that is about 623 passengers and 8 movements a day ³. It gives cargo capacity as 3,000 metric tonnes a year and lists current cargo activity as not available ³.

Awoko Newspaper, in a report dated 4 December 2017 with no byline, cited National Tourist Board figures for the first half of 2016 and 2017 ⁴. It gave 215,355 passengers at Lungi for the first half of 2016 and 165,536 for the first half of 2017, and stated the drop as 48,819 ⁴. The two figures differ by 49,819 ⁴. The board sorted passengers into six regional categories, the report said ⁴. This site has not found how that method compares with SLCAA counts.

At the March 2023 terminal opening, President Bio said passenger volumes at the old airport hovered around 200,000, according to State House ⁶. The World Health Organization said the airport was closed to international passenger flights for four months in 2020 due to COVID-19 and said on 21 July 2020 that it was set to reopen to commercial flights on 22 July 2020 ⁵. No passenger total for 2020 was found.

Capacity against traffic

State House said on 3 March 2023 that the new terminal has capacity for over one million passengers a year, five times the airport's capacity at the time ⁶. A press release on Runway Girl Network said it can handle up to 90,000 passengers a month ⁷.

In January 2023 the Sierra Leone Telegraph, as reported by Abdul Rashid Thomas, quoted a social media post by Minister of Lands Dr Turad Senesie ⁹. He wrote that the new facility would handle up to 50,000 passengers a month, against 10,000 at the old airport ⁹. The 2025 total reported by SLCAA, 268,929, is below each of these capacity figures ^1,67.

Where the numbers come from

The SLCAA website has an Air Transport publications page ⁸. When viewed on 24 October 2026 it showed no statistics documents ⁸. The recent figures on this page come from a press report and a government article that cite SLCAA ^1,2.

No cargo tonnage for any year after 2013 was found. No traffic figures published by the terminal operator, Summa, or by the Sierra Leone Airports Authority were found ⁸.