OREANDA-NEWS. FRA - Frankfurt Airport (FRA) welcomed more than 4.6 million passengers in March 2015, representing an increase of 2.5 percent 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 31 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 percent to 37,218 takeoffs and landings. Accumulated maximum takeoff weights (MTOWs) increased to 2.37 million metric tons (up 1.2 percent).

Cargo volume (airfreight and airmail) dropped by 6.1 percent 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.

With more than 12.5 million passengers choosing Germany's biggest airport in the first quarter of 2015, FRA recorded passenger growth of 2.7 percent compared to the same period in the preceding year. Thus, FRA exceeded the existing first quarter record reached in 2008 by approximately 260,000 passengers, despite the influence of strikes, winter weather and storms. Particularly strong growth came from Asian traffic as well as tourist destinations in North Africa. Following the trend of recent months, the total number of aircraft movements in the January-to March 2015 period slipped by 2.2 percent to 104,780 takeoffs and landings. Nevertheless, MTOWs still rose by 2.1 percent to 6.6 million metric tons. FRA's cargo throughput fell by two percent to 511,355 metric tons.

Overall, Fraport AG's international airport portfolio achieved positive results during the first quarter of 2015. With 236,263 passengers (down 0.2 percent), Slovenia's Ljubljana Airport (LJU) maintained nearly the same passenger level as last year. Lima Airport (LIM) in the capital of Peru, South America, greeted some four million passengers - leading to a strong rise of 8.6 percent. The Bulgarian Twin-Star airports of Varna (VAR) and Burgas (BOJ) received a total 96,821 passengers (up 7.4 percent) in the first quarter of the year. Antalya Airport (AYT) on the Turkish Riviera served about 2.4 million travelers from January to March 2015, a noticeable gain of 6.3 percent year-on-year.

Receiving nearly 2.5 million passengers, Russia's St. Petersburg Airport (LED) registered a slight decline of 0.6 percent. In central China, traffic at Xi'an Airport (XIY) surged by 17.6 percent to more than 7.6 million passengers in the first three months of the year. In the northern German state of Lower Saxony, Hanover Airport (HAJ) recorded a 5.3 percent jump to 974,487 passengers.