GERMANY. Frankfurt Airport welcomed a record 5.9 million travellers in September, up +1.9% year-on-year.
The comparison was affected by a Lufthansa pilots’ strike in September 2015 , which hit passenger volumes.
Without this base effect, passenger traffic would have remained almost level year-on-year, Frankfurt Airport’s owner Fraport said.
During the first nine months of 2016, Frankfurt Airport served 46.7 million passengers, a -1.2% decrease year-on-year.
Fraport said the decline could partly be attributed to the geopolitical climate, which has led to a reduction in air travel bookings worldwide.
Frankfurt Airport welcomed 18.0 million passengers during the holiday months from July to September, a -1.8% drop compared to the same period of 2015.
Other airports in Fraport’s international portfolio posted mixed performances during September.
At Slovenia’s Ljubljana Airport, passenger traffic fell -3.7% year-on-year to 151,658, while at Peru’s capital city airport Lima, traffic climbed +8.7% to almost 1.6 million.
The combined traffic figures for the Twin Star airports of Varna and Burgas in Bulgaria grew +26.8% to 691,780.
Due to the international geopolitical situation in the region as well as Russia’s sanctions, Antalya Airport in Turkey reported a -31.7% decline to 2.5 million passengers, while Moscow Pulkovo Airport welcomed 1.4 million passengers, down -0.9%.
Germany’s Hanover Airport saw passenger traffic climb +2.3% year-on-year in September to 586,181. In China, Xi’an Airport welcomed 3.3 million passengers, a +13.1% climb over the same period in 2015.
