With ongoing robust traffic growth in May 2018, Frankfurt Airport welcomed some 6.1 million passengers and registered a 9.5% increase compared to the previous year. Factors contributing to this growth included the occurrence in May 2018 of several extended holiday weekends, as well as school breaks in some German states. In addition, increased capacity on FRA's European routes spurred passenger growth. During the January-to-May period, Frankfurt Airport achieved accumulated passenger growth of 8.9%.
Cargo throughput (airfreight + airmail) dropped slightly by 1.1% to 184,555 metric tons in May 2018. Accumulated maximum takeoff weights (MTOWs) expanded by 6.0% to some 2.8 million metric tons. Aircraft movements climbed by 9.0% to 45,708 takeoffs and landings.
Across the Group, airports in Fraport's international portfolio all recorded strong performance in May 2018. Ljubljana Airport (LJU) in Slovenia's capital city served 167,257 passengers, representing an increase of 14.4%. Fraport's two Brazilian airports in Fortaleza (FOR) and Porto Alegre (POA) reported combined traffic growth of 3.2% to about 1.1 million passengers. Traffic at the 14 Greek regional airports surged by 21.0% to 3.1 million passengers overall. The busiest of the Greek airports included Rhodes Airport (RHO) with 632,152 passengers (up 19.7%), Thessaloniki Airport (SKG) with 609,120 passengers (up 16.8%), and Chania Airport (CHQ) with 374,089 passengers (up 13.8%). Peru's Lima Airport (LIM) posted 11.9% traffic growth to about 1.9 million passengers. At the Twin Star airports of Burgas (BOJ) and Varna (VAR) on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, passenger numbers soared by 39.3% to a total of 331,648 passengers. Traffic at Antalya Airport (AYT) in Turkey jumped by 36.3% to around 3.5 million passengers. Hanover Airport (HAJ) in northern Germany registered a 5.6% traffic gain to 574,109 passengers. Pulkovo Airport (LED) in St. Petersburg, Russia, saw traffic advance by 12.9% to some 1.6 million passengers. In China, Xi'an Airport (XIY) welcomed about 3.8 million passengers, representing an increase of 9.5%.