- Frankfurt Airport (FRA) served more than 70.5 million passengers in 2019 – achieving a new all-time record by exceeding the 70-million mark for the first time in a calendar year.
- Compared to the previous year, this represents a passenger increase of 1.5 percent.
- Following a positive trend in the first half of 2019 (up 3.0 percent), passenger volumes largely stagnated in the second half of the year (up 0.2 percent).
In the months of November and December 2019, passenger numbers declined for the first time since November 2016.
The relatively weaker growth in full-year passenger numbers can be mainly attributed to domestic traffic (down 3.4 percent) and European traffic (up 1.2 percent).
In contrast, intercontinental traffic to and from Frankfurt Airport increased by 3.4 percent in 2019.
Aircraft movements rose by 0.4%
The number of aircraft movements at Frankfurt Airport rose by 0.4 percent to 513,912 takeoffs and landings in 2019. Accumulated maximum takeoff weights (MTOWs) were up 0.8 percent to about 31.9 million metric tons.
Cargo throughput (airfreight + airmail) contracted by 3.9 percent to 2.1 million metric tons, reflecting the ongoing slowdown of the global economy.
Passenger traffic declined in December 2019
In December 2019, Frankfurt Airport’s passenger traffic declined by 1.2 percent year-on-year to 4.9 million passengers. With 36,635 takeoffs and landings, aircraft movements shrank by 4.4 percent.
MTOWs slipped by 2.9 percent to just under 2.4 million metric tons. Cargo volumes decreased by 7.2 percent to 170,384 metric tons.
Positive performance for international airport operating companies owned by Fraport
The airports in Fraport AG’s international portfolio continued to show largely positive performance during 2019.
Affected by the bankruptcy of home-carrier Adria Airways and other factors, Ljubljana Airport (LJU) in Slovenia recorded a 5.0 percent traffic decline in the reporting year (December 2019: down 21.6 percent).
In contrast, Fraport’s two Brazilian airports of Fortaleza (FOR) and Porto Alegre (POA) posted combined traffic growth of 3.9 percent to 15.5 million passengers (December 2019: up 0.3 percent).
Peru’s Lima Airport (LIM) continued the strong performance of previous years, with traffic rising by 6.6 percent (December 2019: up 5.4 percent).
Traffic at the 14 Greek regional airports expanded slightly by 0.9 percent to nearly 30.2 million passengers in 2019 (December 2019: down 2.2 percent).
Following years of dynamic growth, traffic at Varna (VAR) and Burgas (BOJ) airports in Bulgaria declined by 10.7 percent, due to airlines consolidating their flight offerings (December 2019: up 23.3 percent).
In 2019, traffic at Turkey’s Antalya Airport (AYT) once again advanced rapidly by 10.0 percent to almost 35.5 million passengers (December 2019: up 2.8 percent).
Pulkovo Airport (LED) in St. Petersburg, Russia, saw traffic climb by 8.1 percent to some 19.6 million passengers (December 2019: up 5.7 percent).
At Xi’an Airport (XIY) in China, traffic jumped by 5.7 percent to more than 47.2 million passengers (December 2019: up 4.7 percent).
