Fraport welcomed roughly 61.6 million passengers at its FRA home-base airport in 2024, equating to an increase of 3.7 percent compared to 2023 figures.

The Fraport Group concluded the 2024 fiscal year, ending on December 31, with growth in key financial figures. The global airport operator boosted its revenues thanks to increased traffic volumes and prices at Frankfurt Airport and across its international network of airports.

The Group result (or net profit) also benefited from these factors, rising by 16.6 percent to €501.9 million.

Key financial figures

Price effects and rising passenger volumes boosted total annual revenue by 10.7 percent to a new record of €4.43 billion in the year under review (from €4.00 billion in 2023).

After adjusting for revenues resulting from construction and expansion measures at Fraport’s international subsidiaries (in line with IFRIC 12), revenue increased by 11.7 percent to €3.89 billion.

Group EBITDA also rose to a new record level of €1.30 billion. This represented an increase of 8.1 percent (2023: €1.20 billion). The Group result (or net profit) advanced by 16.6 percent to €501.9 million (2023: €430.5 million).

The net debt to EBITDA ratio of 6.4 remained at the previous year’s level (2023: 6.4). Operating cash flow increased by €315.9 million to €1,179.1 million, but was more than offset by high cash outflows, particularly due to investments in the completion of major expansion projects in Lima and Frankfurt.

Free cash flow dropped slightly by 2.8 percent, to minus €674.7 million (2023: minus €656.4 million).

Fraport CEO Dr. Stefan Schulte said: “Despite headwinds, we’ve achieved a solid result. While at the start of 2024 we were still seeing growth rates of around 10 percent, passenger volumes gradually declined as the year went on. In addition to bottlenecks in the delivery of new aircraft, excessively high regulatory costs continue to be a major factor.”

Schulte continued: If no political action is taken, costs imposed by regulators will further increase in 2025, with airlines facing an additional €1.2 billion burden.

On the positive side, our international subsidiary airports largely presented a better performance, with many of them achieving dynamic growth rates. Our Group airports in Lima, Ljubljana, Antalya, and Greece all performed particularly strongly.”

Growth in passenger and cargo volumes

Passenger numbers increased across most of the Group’s airports in 2024. In Frankfurt, leisure traffic continued to dominate, while demand for business travel also continued to rise, albeit at a more subdued rate.

Domestic traffic within Germany rose by two percent, still remaining well below pre-pandemic levels. European traffic saw an increase of 4.2 percent, with warm weather destinations and city trips being particularly popular.

Fraport Group’s 2024 at a glance.

Intercontinental traffic expanded by 3.4 percent overall, with Asia being a significant growth driver, increasing by 13.3 percent. Specifically, traffic to and from China played a major role, recording the highest increase in absolute terms.

Additionally, increased passenger volumes for Indian destinations also supported growth.

Cargo volumes in Frankfurt (comprising airfreight and airmail) rose by 6.2 year-on-year in 2024, to around 2.1 million metric tons. As a leading cargo hub in Europe, Frankfurt benefited from increased demand for airfreight from e-commerce.

Capacity constraints for sea freight as a result of the geopolitical crises were a further driver.

Subsidiary airport performance

Across the Group, most of Fraport’s subsidiary airports also experienced growth in 2024. When compared with 2023, the strongest performers were Lima (up 15.2 percent), Ljubljana (up 13.3 percent), Antalya (up 6.5 percent) and the 14 Greek airports (up 6.4 percent).

Overall, passenger numbers at Fraport’s Group airports outside Germany exceeded the record levels seen in pre-pandemic 2019 by 1.3 percent.

Future-focused projects

Fraport is entering the home stretch with respect to several major expansion projects.

In Lima, a new terminal is set to open soon. This new facility will enable Fraport’s Peruvian airport to almost double its capacity in stages over the coming months, to about 40 million passengers.

At Antalya Airport, a comprehensive expansion will also soon be completed, in time for the coming summer season. The gateway to the Turkish Riviera will subsequently be able to welcome up to 65 million passengers yearly. \

In Frankfurt, construction of Terminal 3 is continuing, with commissioning planned for after Easter 2026.

Fraport said it remains committed to demonstrating that the strategic goals of growth and sustainability are not mutually exclusive.

For example, Fraport decreased its greenhouse gas emissions across the Group by around 14 percent in 2024.

The Group intends to set further major milestones in the coming years – particularly when it comes to the use of green energy.

Projects include the completion of a comprehensive photovoltaic array with 37,000 solar panels along Runway 18 West at Frankfurt Airport, and the harnessing of significant quantities of green energy from an offshore windfarm in the North Sea from 2026.

Fraport has also made its sustainability targets even more ambitious.

Until now, these were focused on reducing CO2 emissions. The new definition will be significantly broader, taking into account all climate-related greenhouse gases (i.e. CO2 equivalents). The Fraport Group is committing to achieve Net Zero (greenhouse gas neutrality) status under Scope 1 and Scope 2 at all of its wholly-owned subsidiaries by 2045.

Net Zero means greenhouse gas neutrality. In addition, the following targets are also to be achieved by 2030: Fraport will reduce its CO2 emissions in Frankfurt to 50,000 metric tons, and to 95,000 metric tons across the Group.

Outlook

For the current 2025 fiscal year, Fraport expects passenger numbers in Frankfurt to reach up to 64 million. Group EBITDA is projected to see a moderate increase.

The Group result is expected to remain stable or decline slightly, due to the non-recurrence of a one-off effect from 2024, when the sale of a minority stake in Pulkovo Airport contributed more than €40 million to the result.

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