Despite setting a new September passenger record of 5.9m passengers, Frankfurt Airport’s January-to-September traffic numbers fell by -1.2% to 46.7m passengers compared to the previous year.

 

This was due to the comparative distortion effect of a strike in September 2015. More happily, cargo throughput (air freight and air mail) at FRA was positively impacted by the slight recovery of the global economy, resulting in a gain of 5.9% in September 2016.

 

GLOBAL REDUCTION IN AIR TRAVEL BOOKINGS…

Fraport management notes that the aforementioned -1.2% decline in passengers over nine months was ‘partly’ attributed to the ongoing geopolitical situation, ‘which has led to a reduction in air travel bookings worldwide’.

 

In similar vein, Fraport points to around 18m passengers during the holiday months from July to September 2016, corresponding to a 1.8% drop compared to the summer period of 2015.

 

 

Turning to those airports within Fraport’s international portfolio, the company registered diverging traffic development during the first three quarters of 2016.

 

It stated: “At Slovenia’s Ljubljana Airport traffic fell by 5% (September 2016: down 3.7% to 151,658 passengers). At Peru’s capital city airport in Lima, traffic climbed by 10.9% to 14m passengers (September 2016: up 8.7% to almost 1.6m passengers).

 

RUSSIAN SANCTIONS HAVE HIT TURKEY HARD

“Similarly, the combined traffic figures for the Twin Star airports of Varna and Burgas on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast grew by a noticeable 22.5% to 4.4m passengers (September 2016: up 26.8% to 691,780 passengers).

 

“Due to the international geopolitical situation in the region, as well as Russia’s sanctions, Antalya Airport on the Turkish Riviera reported a 34.2% decline to about 15.1m passengers (September 2016: down 31.7% to 2.5m passengers).”

 

 

Meanwhile, Fraport also reported that Pulkovo Airport in St. Petersburg Russia handled nearly 10.2m passengers, although this was also a drop of 6.1% compared to the same nine months last year (September 2016: down 0.9% to almost 1.4m passengers).

 

XI’AN AIRPORT – STILL PERFORMING STRONGLY

At the same time, northern Germany’s Hanover Airport (HAJ) achieved positive results in September 2016 (+2.3% to 586,181 passengers), while cumulative traffic for the first three quarters of the year fell by 0.8% to circa 4.2m passengers.

 

Yet again, Xi’an Airport in China once more achieved strong double-digit growth of 11.3% to 27.6m passengers, with the month of September 2016 alone registering a 13.1% rise to 3.3m passengers.