Spanish airport operator Aena said on Thursday its net profit in the first nine months of the year jumped 71% from the same period in 2022 as passenger traffic in Spain surpassed pre-pandemic levels.

The company said it expects traffic will keep on growing through the winter following a strong summer, forecasting full-year traffic in 2023 to be 2% above the 275 million passengers registered in 2019.

The company had forecast a year ago traffic at 92% of pre-pandemic levels this year. It expects traffic will continue to grow to reach 300 million in 2026.

The Spanish airport operator made net profit of to 1.14 billion euros ($1.21 billion) while revenue between January and September grew 20% from the same period a year ago to 3.7 billion euros.

Aena's financial results were in line with analysts' expectations.

Tourism worldwide strongly recovered in 2023 after a couple of years of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

In Europe, the recovery was led by travellers from cooler climates seeking warmer temperatures in the south, according to the Spanish airline association. Traffic to other European countries, where business travel represents a bigger share, was still slightly below pre-pandemic levels.

Aena operates all the commercial airports in Spain and also runs airports in Latin America and Britain.

Passenger traffic at all Aena airports increased to 240 million in the first nine months of the year, which implies a full recovery from the 2019 traffic. ($1 = 0.9435 euros) (Reporting by Corina Pons, editing by Inti Landauro and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)