Frankfurt Airport handled 11.8m passengers in the first quarter of 2011 – a rise of 3.7% year-on-year, although passenger and air freight traffic levels remained virtually unchanged in March, with passengers slightly down due to the Easter holiday period falling during April 2011, compared with March last year.

The instability in the Middle East and North Africa also left its mark, with Frankfurt handling 4.3m passengers in March 2011 – a 0.9% decline. 

By contrast, Fraport’s majority-owned airports recorded stable growth rates in March 2011, with Antalya Airport in Turkey registering an impressive 19.3% increase, while Peru’s Lima Airport achieved an equally impressive 23% surge. 

The Bulgarian tourist airport of Varna (VAR) reported growth of 12.5%, while Burgas grew by more than 130%, although from a very small base.

ANTALYA AND LIMA IMPRESS
Total passenger traffic for the Fraport Group’s five majority-owned airports advanced by 5.2% to 6.3m in the reporting month, while traffic in the first quarter reached 16.9m passengers – representing average growth of 7.7%. 

Significantly, passenger traffic in the first quarter rose by 14.1% at Antalya, by 20.9% at Lima, and at Bulgaria’s Varna and Burgas airports by 10% and 131.2% respectively.