Groningen Airport Eelde Offers Capacity For Growth In The Netherlands

Groningen Airport Eelde (GRQ) is a Dutch regional airport located in the Northern Netherlands and serves the upper half of the country. Nearly 4 million residents live within a 90-minute drive, and its 60’ catchment area, home to over 2 million inhabitants, is fully autonomous. GRQ is not slot-restricted and has capacity to accommodate growth in the congested Dutch aviation market.

New Routes in 2025

The 2025 programme includes two new routes: Sunweb’s new series to Heraklion with SKY Express, adding additional peak summer capacity alongside Corendon, and a new exclusive connection from the Netherlands to Knock (Ireland West Airport). This route will be operated by Emerald Airlines on behalf of BBI Travel, a tour operator specializing in Ireland, the Nordics, and Iceland. This marks BBI Travel’s second exclusive destination from GRQ, following three successful years of winter seasonal flights to Scandinavian Mountains Airport in Sweden.

In 2024, Groningen Airport welcomed over 113,000 passengers, with most of the passenger traffic coming from seasonal holiday charter flights. This trend is expected to continue in 2025, with airlines such as Corendon, TUI, SKY Express, Emerald Airlines, Blue Islands, and Transavia operating routes to popular destinations in Spain, Turkey, Greece, Ireland, Sweden, and Guernsey.

Looking ahead to 2026, the airport aims to expand its network across the leisure, business, and charter markets. With strong partnerships with tour operators, guaranteed seat allotments on select routes will help airlines minimize risks when launching new services to GRQ.

Route Opportunities

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Groningen Airport had scheduled services to Munich (daily), London (up to 3-daily), and Copenhagen (2-daily). The latter two are the most popular business destinations for passengers in the GRQ catchment area. These routes, along with several other unserved opportunities, remain highly sought after by travelers and businesses in the region.

As a member of Routes 360, the only digital platform dedicated to route development, GRQ has uploaded multiple route opportunities to its profile.

Unserved:

• London City Airport (LCY)
• Copenhagen Airports A/S (CPH)
• Barcelona – El Prat Airport (BCN)
• Malaga – Costa del Sol Airport (AGP)
• Tenerife South Airport (TFS)
• Faro Airport (FAO)
• Alicante Airport (ALC)
• Riga Airport (RIX)
• Dublin Airport (DUB)
• Manchester Airport (MAN)
• Budapest Airport (BUD)
• Rome Airports (FCO – CIA)
• Vienna Airport (VIE)
• Zurich Airport (ZRH)
• Krakow Airport (KRK)

The airport offers tailor-made new route incentives to attract new services.

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