Passenger traffic up stagnation and even in strong drop for German airports in the fourth quarter of last year: the 2019 financial year is ending much worse than it began for German aviation, according to figures published on Thursday by ADV, the association of German commercial airports. From January to December 2019, ADV's 22 German airports welcomed 248.1 million passengersThis represents an increase of just 1.5%.
Looking at the figures in more detail, European traffic rose last year by 2.3%, intercontinental traffic by 2.7%, while domestic traffic fell by 1.9%. According to Markus EngemannAccording to the Director of Transport at the ADV, while traffic grew strongly in the first half of the year, with a 4.2% increase in passenger numbers - a performance partly due to the cushioning effect of the disappearance of Airberlin in winter 2017 - passenger traffic declined from the summer onwards, losing 0.7% in the second half of the year. But over the last three months of 2019, the decline in passenger traffic averaged 2.33%. In December, domestic traffic collapsed, losing almost 9% of its passengers. Between 2018 and 2019, domestic traffic thus lost 340,000 passengers, to stand at 16.87 million passengers last year.
According to ADV, the reasons for these poor results can be attributed to a number of negative factors, in particular the weakening of the economic climate with the trade war between the United States and Europe, the raising of taxes on flights, the increase in the price of oil and the disappearance of several companies or theban on flights in Boeing 737MAX. All these factors have led to a reduced number of flights and higher ticket prices.
Did the "flight shaming" movement play a role last year? " It can be donesays Markus Engemann, but we have no indicators to show whether there have been any quantifiable consequences. I would remain cautious about the flight shaming effect on our platforms. ".
If we look at the rankings for German airports, nothing has changed in the leading pack. Frankfurt remains the country's largest airport, reaching 70.55 million passengersThis represents an increase of 1.5% compared with 2018. Munichthe group's second hub Lufthansacontinued to grow in popularity, with traffic of 47.94 million passengersup 3.6%. Intercontinental traffic continues to grow strongly, with 9.6 million passengers, a figure up by almost 8% and which should exceed the ten million annual passenger mark in 2020.
Berlin's two airports of Tegel and Schönefeld together came third with 35.64 million passengers, up 2.6%, followed by Düsseldorf and Hamburg with 25.51 and 17.31 million passengers respectively, up 5% and 0.4%. However, the biggest increase among the major airports was recorded at StuttgartThis represents an increase of 7.6%, or 12.75 million passengers. For 2020German airports are again expecting a moderate increase in traffic, to around 2%.
