Growth Continues at Fraport’s Overseas Airports – Strike-related Decline in FRA’s Passenger Figures

Frankfurt Airport (FRA) welcomed nearly 4.7 million passengers in April 2013, a decrease of 2.2 percent year-on-year.  The drop can be attributed to the Easter holidays commencing in March (earlier start of the Easter travel season) and, especially, to the strike by Deutsche Lufthansa AG’s ground staff – which resulted in about 950 strike-related flight cancellations on April 22 that affected more than 100,000 passengers at FRA. Excluding this one-time effect, passenger figures would have reached last year’s level. FRA’s cargo volume remained relatively constant with 174,000 metric tons handled in the reporting month, only 0.1 percent below the April 2012 figure.  Also impacted by the labor strike, aircraft movements fell by 2.2 per cent to about 39,250 takeoffs and landings.

Fraport’s five majority-owned airports served a total of almost 7.4 million passengers in April 2013, up 0.6 percent year-on-year.   In particular, Peru’s Lima Airport (LIM), with some 1.13 million passengers, and Turkey’s Antalya Airport (AYT), with nearly 1.54 million passengers, both registered strong ongoing growth.  Skytrax recently honored Lima Airport with its “Best Airport in South America” award (sixth time) and the “Best Airport Staff Service in South America” award (third time).  Together, the airports of Varna (VAR) and Burgas (BOU) on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast recorded about 47,000 passengers in April 2013.