Positive Traffic Performance in the First Quarter Helped by the
Timing of the Easter Holidays, the Non-Recurrence of Previous Year’s
Flight Cancellations and an Additional Leap Day – Fraport’s Group
Airports Continue to See Varying Results – Strong Growth Achieved in
March 2016
In the first quarter of 2016, Frankfurt Airport (FRA) scored a new
passenger record: with almost 13 million passengers served, passenger
traffic at FRA exceeded the record achieved in the first quarter of
the previous year by some 417,000 passengers, or 3.3 percent. The
traffic performance was positively impacted by the timing of the
Easter holidays and an additional leap day, along with the
non-recurrence of strikes which occurred in the same period of the
previous year. The number of aircraft movements rose slightly by 1
percent to 105,844 takeoffs and landings. Accumulated maximum takeoff
weights (MTOWs) once again increased significantly by 3.4 percent to
6.9 million metric tons, thus exceeding the previous record high
achieved in the first quarter of 2011. Cargo (airfreight and airmail)
volumes decreased slightly by 1 percent to 506,434 metric tons during
the first three months of 2016, partly reflecting the slowdown in
global trade.
In the month of March 2016, some 4.8 million passengers passed
through Frankfurt Airport, up 3.9 percent. The previous March record
from 2015 was thus exceeded by around 180,000 passengers. The strong
performance was helped by the timing of the Easter holidays at the
end of March, as well as the non-recurrence of strike and
weather-related flight cancellations occurred in March 2014. With
37,503 takeoffs and landings, aircraft movements remained at last
year’s level (up 0.8 percent). Maximum takeoff weights were up again
by 3.2 percent to approximately 2.4 million metric tons, reflecting
the ongoing trend by airlines of using larger aircraft types. Cargo
volumes decreased by 1.3 percent to 187,063 metric tons in March
2016, due to the production slowdown in connection with different
timing of the Easter holidays.
Fraport AG’s international portfolio reported varying performance
across the Group’s airports during the first quarter of 2016.
Slovenia’s Ljubljana Airport (LJU) welcomed 245,466 passengers in the
first three months of the year – an increase of 3.9 percent. With
almost 4.5 million passengers served, Lima Airport (LIM) in the
capital city of Peru saw passenger traffic rise by 11.5 percent. The
two Bulgarian Twin Star Airports of Varna (VAR) and Burgas (BOJ)
combined welcomed around 117,000 passengers, achieving passenger
growth of 20.9 percent. Passenger figures at Antalya Airport (AYT) in
Turkey and Pulkovo Airport (LED) in St. Petersburg, Russia, decreased
by 2.8 percent to just under 2.4 million passengers and 6.2 percent
to about 2.3 million passengers respectively. Almost 1 million
passengers used Hanover Airport (HAJ) in northern Germany during the
first quarter of the current year, up 3.4 percent. Xi’an Airport
(XIY) in China welcomed some 8.6 million passengers – an increase of
13 percent.
