Frankfurt Airport achieves strong passenger growth

With May 2015 passenger figures rising by a noticeable 5.4 percent year-on-year, Frankfurt Airport (FRA) welcomed some 5.6 million passengers and achieved its busiest May month in history.

Furthermore, the 200,000 passengers-per-day figure was exceeded for the first time in a May month, namely on May 17 (about 202,000 passengers) and again on May 22 (about 208,700 passengers). The occurrence of various holidays favorably influenced FRA’s passenger figures: Compared to last year, the Whitsun 2015 vacation occurred in May – whereby this vacation began in May 2015 in the neighboring states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg.

In contrast, the additional holidays in May dampened FRA’s cargo throughput in the reporting month, with tonnage (airfreight and airmail) slipping by 3.1 percent to 179,831 metric tons. Aircraft movements increased slightly by 0.7 percent to 42,656 takeoffs and landings. Maximum takeoff weights (MTOWs) jumped by 3.2 percent to about 2.7 million metric tons – also reaching a new May record. The trend of recent months towards deployment of larger aircraft and better capacity utilization continued at FRA.

Fraport AG’s Group airports around the world registered positive development overall in May 2015. With 128,411 passengers, Slovenia’s capital city airport in Ljubljana (LJU) posted a traffic surge of 19.6 percent year-on-year. Lima Airport (LIM) in Peru also reported satisfying traffic performance. With more than 1.4 million passengers in May 2015, LIM’s traffic clearly advanced by 9.2 percent.

Bulgaria’s Twinstar airports of Burgas (BOJ) and Varna (VAR), however, experienced a combined 7.4 percent drop in traffic to 167,984 passengers. Turkey’s Antalya Airport (AYT) saw traffic decline by 6.6 percent to about three million passengers. At St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport, the number of passengers fell by 4.2 percent to about 1.2 million passengers. In northern Germany, Hanover Airport (HAJ) received 512,048 passengers, representing dynamic growth of 7.6 percent year-on-year. Serving about 2.8 million passengers in May 2015, Xi’an Airport in central China once again reported strong double-digit growth of 12.8 percent.

Print-quality photos of Fraport AG and Frankfurt Airport are available for free downloading via the photo library located in our Press Center on the Fraport Web site. For TV news and information broadcasting purposes only, we also offer free footage material for downloading.

Fraport AG – which ranks among the world’s leading companies in the global airport business – offers a full range of integrated airport management services and boasts subsidiaries and investments on five continents. In 2014, the Fraport Group generated sales of EUR2.4 billion and profit of about EUR252 million. Last year more than 108.5 million passengers used airports around the world in which Fraport has more than a 50 percent stake.

At its Frankfurt Airport (FRA) home base, Fraport welcomed about 60 million passengers and handled some 2.2 million metric tons of cargo (airfreight and airmail) in 2014. For the current summer timetable, FRA is served by 104 passenger airlines flying to some 297 destinations in 104 countries worldwide. More than half of FRA’s destinations are intercontinental (beyond Europe) – underscoring Frankfurt’s role as a leading hub in the global air transportation system. In Europe, Frankfurt Airport ranks first in terms of cargo tonnage and is the third-busiest for passenger traffic. With about 55 percent of all passengers using Frankfurt as a connecting hub, FRA also has the highest transfer rate among the major European hubs.

Frankfurt Airport City has become Germany’s largest job complex at a single location, employing more than 80,000 people at some 500 companies and organizations on site. Major new real estate developments – such as The Squaire, the Gateway Gardens business park, and the Mönchhof Logistics Park – are creating an exciting new dimension and range of services at the evolving Frankfurt Airport City of the 21st century.

Almost half of Germany’s population lives within a 200-kilometer radius of the FRA intermodal travel hub – the largest airport catchment area in Europe. FRA Airport City also serves as a magnet for other companies located throughout the economically vital Frankfurt/Rhine-Main-Neckar region. Thanks to synergies associated with the region’s dynamic industries, networked expertise, and outstanding intermodal transportation infrastructure, FRA’s world route network enables Hesse’s and Germany’s export-oriented businesses to flourish in global growth markets.

Frankfurt Airport meets the increasing needs of the export-oriented economies of the State of Hesse as well as Germany as a whole, for optimal connections to growth markets around the globe. Likewise, FRA is a strategic gateway for companies wanting to access the huge European marketplace. Thus, Frankfurt Airport – which is strategically located in the heart of Europe – is one of the most important hubs in the global logistics chain.