Frankfurt Airport’s passenger figures reach record level in March

Frankfurt Airport (FRA) welcomed more than 4.6 million passengers in March 2015, representing an increase of 2.5% year-on-year and a new March monthly record. During the reporting month, FRA was affected by the Lufthansa pilot strike for four days and on March 31st by Hurricane Niklas, which disrupted the flight schedule. Excluding these events that resulted in about 1,250 flight cancellations, some 150,000 additional passengers would have used the FRA global aviation hub. Correspondingly, the number of aircraft movements declined by 2.3% to 37,218 takeoffs and landings. Accumulated maximum takeoff weights (MTOWs) increased to 2.37 million metric tons (up 1.2%). Cargo volume (airfreight and airmail) dropped by 6.1% to 189,546 metric tons. The effects of strike-related flight cancellations can be seen here as well, which also led to reductions in belly capacity in the important intercontinental traffic segment.