Following its earlier confirmation that Frankfurt Airport passed the 60m-passengers mark in 2015, airport management has confirmed that exactly 61,040,613 customers used Germany’s largest air transportation hub last year – a 2.5% year-on-year increase.

 

Frankfurt Airport owner Fraport says this total would have been even greater (+3.8%) without the series of strikes by Lufthansa pilots and cabin crews and other weather-related cancellations.

 

The airports company added that Frankfurt also set some new daily peak traffic records during 2015, with the number of passengers using FRA on 2 August hitting an all-time high of 217,500. Management adds that due to the overlapping summer holidays last year, the 200,000 daily passenger level was actually exceeded some 63 times – another new record.

 

RECORD GROWTH WAS ‘EXPECTED’

Fraport AG’s Executive Board Chairman Dr. Stefan Schulte said: “We are pleased that so many travellers have placed their trust in us and that we could welcome more than 61m passengers at Frankfurt Airport last year.

 

“This passenger growth is in line with our expectations. In 2015, we had the ground breaking for our new Terminal 3 – an important step in building the foundation for Frankfurt Airport’s long-term competitiveness.”

 

 

Looking at the results of airports owned by the group, Slovenia’s Ljubljana Airport, the newest member registered a strong double-digit gain of 10% to about 1.4m passengers. In Peru’s capital city, some 17.1m travelled via Lima Airport (+9.2%) while on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast both Varna Burgas combined handled about 3.8m passengers (-4.1%).

 

Turkey’s Antalya Airport also registered a -1.6% decline in numbers to around 27.5m passengers , while St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo was also down -5.4% Airport.

 

RUSSIAN ECONOMY BITES HARD

By contrast, Hanover Airport in northern Germany was up 3% to 5.5m passengers and the even impressive Xi’an Airport in central China +13% to nearly 33m passengers in 2015.

 

Turning to Fraport’s strategic worldwide orientation, Schulte stated: “The decline in passenger traffic at our group airports in St. Petersburg, Varna and Burgas, as well as Antalya, is the result of the weak Russian currency and economy.

 

 

“In contrast, the strong traffic growth recorded at Ljubljana, Lima and Xi’an airports demonstrates the importance and validity of having wide geographic distribution within our portfolio.”

 

Fraport’s cargo (air freight and air mail) volume across its group-owned airports declined by -2.3% to about 2.1m metric tons in 2015, with the company attributing this to ‘weakening global trade and economic difficulties in some emerging markets’.