Fraport, the operator of Frankfurt Airport (FRA), says that it would have had underlying growth of +3.9% to about 60.3m passengers if it had not been for the high number of mainly strike-related flight cancellations – plus some other extraordinary cancellations due to factors including adverse weather.

For the full year, actual growth reached 59.57m passengers, up +2.6% on 2013, depriving Germany’s largest aviation hub of the 60m mark despite being a new record.
Commenting on the 2014 result, Fraport’s Executive Board Chairman Stefan Schulte (left) says: “Despite the strikes, we were clearly able to maintain the expected growth range forecast for FRA in 2014. The trend experienced in 2014 confirms our forecasts for the coming years.”

OVER-CAPACITY BY 2021?

That progression has been the basis for the argument to build a third new passenger terminal. “If the current trend continues, with growth rates ranging from 2-3% in the coming years, the existing terminals will reach their capacity limits by 2021 at the latest,” adds Schulte. “We will need the new Terminal 3 to ensure that we can continue delivering excellent service quality to our passengers.”

GROUP FIGURES

Across the Fraport Group, airports in the international portfolio also had positive growth in 2014. Slovenia’s capital city airport of Ljubljana (LJU) – which Fraport acquired in September 2014 – welcomed 1.3m passengers up +3.1%; Lima Airport (LIM) in Peru recorded a +5% jump to 15.7m passengers; the Fraport Twinstar airports of Burgas (BOJ) and Varna (VAR) on the Bulgarian Black Sea saw traffic rise by +3.1% to 3.9m passengers; Antalya Airport (AYT) on the Turkish Riviera served 28m passengers, up +4.7%; at St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo (LED) in Russia, traffic surged by +11% to 14.3m; and in China, Xi’an Airport (XIY) served some 29.2m passengers in 2014, achieving +12% growth.