New records for passenger traffic and airfreight at Munich Airport

Munich Airport remains on track for stable growth in 2016

Gains were posted in all traffic segments in the first half of 2016: The nearly 20 million passengers in the first six months of the year represent yet another record. This was a 2.3 percent gain over the same period a year earlier. Aircraft movements showed an even higher rate of increase, with the number of take-offs and landings up by 2.5 percent to over 191,000. Moreover, the dynamic increases only took full effect since the start of the current summer timetable period at the end of March. This means that the year-on-year growth rates over the coming months will be even bigger. “For the entire calendar year we therefore expect a 4 percent increase in take-offs and landings,” said Munich Airport CEO Dr. Michael Kerkloh at the Munich Press Club today.

The new flights to and from Munich are mainly benefiting the international travel segment. The number of passengers on intercontinental flights increased 4.3 percent to 3.2 million in the first half of 2016 and the number of aircraft movements in that segment was up 4.6 percent to over 15,000. This largely reflects the new long-haul destinations offered in the current summer timetable: Lufthansa launched new connections to Denver and Tehran, Delta Airlines now offers a non-stop service to Detroit, Saudia is flying from Munich to Riyadh and Condor has added Windhoek, in Namibia, to its route map.

In continental traffic, the airport handled a total of 11.9 million passengers in the first half, or 2.5 percent more than a year earlier. The number of flights in this segment increased 2.7 percent to just under 122,000. The biggest factor in the growth in European traffic was the launch of numerous new services by Transavia. The Dutch-French carrier has stationed four aircraft in Munich to operate around 100 flights per week to 19 destinations in nine European countries. Lufthansa now offers flights to Debrecen, Corfu, Odessa, Porto, Rzeszów and Santorini. The British regional carrier bmi is serving five destinations from Munich: adding three new destinations – Brno, Milan/Bergamo, Norrköping, Rostock and Southampton. Domestic traffic, at 4.7 million passengers, was down slightly in the first half as compared with 2015.

Growth in the air cargo business at Munich Airport in the first half of 2016 was even more robust than in the passenger segment. The total of about 163,000 tons of flown airfreight represented a 4 percent year-on-year gain over the same period a year earlier.