Frankfurt Airport starts the year with passenger decline

In January 2020, some 4.6 million passengers travelled through Frankfurt Airport (FRA) – a decline of 0.7 percent compared to the same month last year. The decrease was largely due to the weak performance of domestic (intra-German) and European traffic, coinciding with a noticeable consolidation in airline flight offerings. In late January, FRA’s traffic volume was further impacted by flight cancellations to and from China in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. Aircraft movements shrank by 3.4 percent to 36,391 takeoffs and landings in the reporting month. Accumulated maximum takeoff weights (MTOWs) also declined by 2.1 percent to about 2.3 million metric tons. Cargo throughput (airfreight + airmail) dropped by 8.6 percent to 149,217 metric tons – resulting mainly from the earlier timing of the Chinese New Year and initial effects of the coronavirus outbreak.

The airports in Fraport’s international portfolio reported mixed results in January 2020. At Slovenia’s Ljubljana Airport (LJU), traffic fell by 27.1 percent to 75,495 passengers. LJU continued to be impacted by the bankruptcy of Adria Airways, with other airlines not yet fully replacing Adria’s flight offerings. The two Brazilian airports of Fortaleza (FOR) and Porto Alegre (POA), combined, registered a 1.6 percent dip in traffic to around 1.5 million passengers. In contrast, traffic at Peru’s Lima Airport (LIM) advanced by 6.3 percent to some 2 million passengers.
At Fraport’s 14 Greek regional airports, combined traffic rose slightly by 1.4 percent to a total of 626,299 passengers. Traffic at the Bulgarian Twin Star airports of Burgas (BOJ) and Varna (VAR) soared by 22.8 percent overall to 83,434 passengers. Antalya Airport (AYT) in Turkey posted a gain of 5.7 percent to 927,420 passengers. Pulkovo Airport (LED) in St. Petersburg, Russia, welcomed more than 1.3 million passengers, representing an 8.0 percent increase. In China, traffic at Xi’an Airport (XIY) dropped by 6.5 percent to about 3.5 million passengers.