Munich Airport handled 39.7m (+3%) passengers in 2014, corresponding to one million more than in 2013.

 

Strong gains in HY2 helped cement the result, with a 4% increase in passenger volume over the last six months of the year, although airport management did not break down its international traffic from the total.

 

Interestingly, the increase in passenger numbers resulted entirely from gains in international traffic, with the strongest growth recorded in the intercontinental segment – +7% to 6.2m passengers.

 

This was helped by strong results on the new long-haul connections to Houston, Mexico and Shanghai, plus additional flights to Abu Dhabi.

 

The continental segment remained the largest traffic segment by far at Munich, with the number of travellers to European destinations up by nearly 3% to 24m-plus.

 

 

STRONG EUROPEAN TRAFFIC

Strong gains were seen in routes to Spain, Italy and Greece. By contrast, traffic on routes within Germany at 9.3m passengers remained unchanged from 2013.

 

The average load factor in Munich also rose to a new all-time high of 75.9%, with 377,000 take-offs and landings in 2014 – a decrease of 1.4% as the airport felt the effects of airlines utilising larger aircraft. (The airfreight segment also reported new records with total volume up 8% to more than 291,000 tons).

 

Commenting, Dr. Michael Kerkloh, CEO at Munich Airport said he was optimistic for the year ahead: “In 2015 we will not only vault over the 40 million barrier for total passengers, but will also record more take-offs and landings.

 

“That means that our Munich hub will continue growing, even if that growth is limited due to capacity constraints in our runway system.”