Munich Airport continues to gather momentum as a growth engine: In the first half of 2007 the airport posted double-digit growth in total passengers as compared with the same period a year earlier. The 16 million…
Munich Airport continues to gather momentum as a growth engine: In the first half of 2007 the airport posted double-digit growth in total passengers as compared with the same period a year earlier. The 16 million passengers taking off and landing in Munich from January to June represented a year-on-year increase of 11 percent, and exceeded the total for the entire year of 1996.
About one in three of all additional passengers counted at German airports in the first half of 2007 flew via Munich. Among Europe’s top ten airports, only Madrid reported a faster growth rate. Whether we measure ourselves against domestic airports or at the international level, it is evident that Munich is obviously among the most attractive aviation locations on the European map at present, said Dr. Michael Kerkloh, the CEO of Flughafen Munchen GmbH (FMG), the Munich Airport operating company, speaking at the Munich Press Club today.
The number of take-offs and landings increased by more than 5 percent to a new record of some 204,000 aircraft movements. And the airfreight sector once again weighed in with double-digit growth rates: The nearly 120,000 metric tons of flown airfreight marked a year-on-year increase of close to 13 percent.
The intercontinental segment once again achieved particularly strong gains. During the first half of 2005, the number of passengers flying on long-haul routes was up more than 17 percent on the first half of the previous year. In total, more than two million travellers took advantage of the intercontinental connections available in Munich. European traffic shows a growth rate of over 12 percent and is thus expanding somewhat faster than overall traffic. The domestic segment is currently growing at a rate of over 5 percent.
The two terminals at Munich Airport are currently posting almost identical rates of increase. The low-cost segment, where passenger numbers were up by 19 percent, has been a contributing factor to the strong gains seen in Terminal 1. This segment now accounts for about 16 percent of all passengers at Munich Airport. A total of 38 destinations are now served by nine budget airlines operating in Munich.
Munich Airport has also further bolstered its status as a gateway for flights to eastern Europe, with 1.4 million passengers – a 26 percent gain on the first half of 2006 – taking flights to and from that region. Also in very heavy demand were the Scandinavian routes, where passenger figures were up 18 percent.
One factor behind the strong increase in passenger traffic is the improved utilisation of aircraft capacity. The seat load factor of planes using Munich Airport was up 0.8 percent to 71.4 percent. In addition, the airlines operating at Munich Airport are increasingly switching to bigger planes.
Major factors driving the strong performance of the cargo segment at Munich Airport in the first half of the year included more frequent flights on Asian and South American routes. The tonnage of co-loaded freight on passenger aircraft increased by 11 percent. The so-called freight-only segment posted an even stronger rise of 19 percent thanks to new cargo flights by British Airways World Cargo, Cargoitalia and Emirates SkyCargo.
The month of June 2007 yielded two new traffic records for Munich Airport: the 3,037,300 passengers who arrived and departed represented the busiest month in the airport`s history, and the approximately 21,300 metric tonnes of freight handled also marked a new all-time peak.
Summing up, the airport’s CEO Kerkloh stressed Munich’s significance as an aviation location: In an increasingly globalised world, mobility is the key factor for the competitiveness of individual economies. Aviation in general and Munich Airport in particular ensure mobility in its most efficient form.”
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
