Frankfurt Airport management reports that 5.5m passengers used the facility in June, representing a fall of 4.1% compared to the same month last year, while its parent Fraport said the company’s portfolio of airport interests had mixed results.

 

The Frankfurt Airport decline was blamed on around 230 weather and strike-related flight cancellations affecting 24,000 passengers, with this slowdown also impacting on the overall number of aircraft movements (-2.7% to 41,153 take-offs and landings).

 

By contrast, the first half of the year saw Frankfurt handle 28.7m passengers – a 0.9% decline compared to the same period last year. The main cause included the disproportionate thinning-out of the flight schedule, plus the aforementioned flight cancellations in the first half – plus a reduction in travel bookings due to the overall geopolitical situation.

 

GROUP AIRPORT INTERESTS

During the same first half period, Fraport AG’s international portfolio of airports reported a mixed bag of traffic results. Slovenia’s Ljubljana Airport handled 598,271 passengers between January and June 2016, representing a -4.5% decline, while Peru’s Lima Airport recorded double-digit growth of 11.0% to 8.9m passengers over the same period.

 

Fraport added: “The Twin Star airports of Varna (VAR) and Burgas (BOJ) on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast also achieved strong growth, with both gateways serving a total of 1.2m passengers – a surge of 24.8% (in June 2016, up by 23.4% to 779,938 passengers).

 

“Turkey’s Antalya Airport (AYT) continued to experience a slowdown, with traffic dropping by 30.5% in the first six months of the year to 7.3m passengers (in June 2016, down by 47.1% to 1.9m passengers). Traffic at St. Petersburg Airport (LED) in Russia was also characterised by a noticeable 6.5% slide to 5.7m passengers (in June 2016, down by 7.6% to 1.4m passengers).”

 

Fraport added that in northern Germany, Hanover Airport registered a -0.7% dip in traffic to 2.4m passengers (in June 2016, down 2.9% to 521,676 passengers), while traffic at Xi’an Airport in China continued to show strong growth during the first six months, rising by 11.3% to 17.5m passengers (June 2016 +10.8% to 2.9m passengers).