Frankfurt airport reports record traffic

Fraport AG has had an eventful first half of 2010 at its Frankfurt Airport home base. FRA's traffic development was slowed by several winter storms, strikes, as well as the ash cloud from Iceland at the beginning of the second quarter.

However, Frankfurt Airport still recorded a 1.4 per cent rise in passenger figures year-on-year - welcoming about 24.5 million passengers in the first six months of this year. Exceeding more than one million metric tons, airfreight tonnage at Germany's busiest air transportation hub increased by 32.2 per cent in the first half.

Following strong performance in May, FRA also registered positive traffic development in the reporting month. Indeed, three new June monthly traffic records were achieved.

Frankfurt Airport welcomed more passengers, handled more airfreight, and registered more maximum takeoff weights then in any previous June in FRA's history.

Frankfurt Airport served some 4,851,896 passengers (up seven per cent) and handled 192,508 metric tons of airfreight (up 29.9 per cent) last month.

Commenting on the latest traffic figures, Fraport executive board chairman Stefan Schulte said: "These numbers convincingly show that the finance and economic crisis has been overcome and that the aviation industry - despite several small traffic blips - is back on track to reaching and even exceeding the results of the pre-crisis years."

"This positive development, the future viability of Germany as an aviation hub and the positive impact of air transportation on Germany's economy should not, under any circumstances, be threatened by the introduction of an ecological aviation tax," said Dr Schulte in response to the German government's proposal.

Serving some 9.2 million passengers last month, the Fraport Group's five majority-owned airports - Frankfurt, Antalya in Turkey, Burgas and Varna in Bulgaria, and Lima in Peru - achieved 11.8 per cent growth year-on-year.