Frankfurt confident of "sustainable recovery"

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Frankfurt airport group Fraport said this week it is confident a sustainable recovery is now in progress since the traffic collapse of last September

"Traffic figures during the first two weeks of November 2002 are already clearly better than last year's results," Fraport said in a statement. The airport's figures for October 2002 show an increase of 13.6% from last year and 4.5m passengers in the month. Passenger growth in October was even stronger than the 7% increase registered in September. Fraport said it is expecting almost 49m passengers for the total year 2002.

In particular intercontinental traffic has boosted passenger growth.  As expected Fraport said routes to the Middle East and North America achieved the biggest increases, with both growing by more than 40% compared to October 2001. Traffic to Asia reached new peak levels. The highest-growth destinations included China, Hong Kong, India and Japan.

Traffic growth contributed to higher revenues at Frankfurt producing a 13% rise to ?855.2m ($838m) for the first half year 2002. Consolidated profit climbed even higher by 37% to ?53.6m ($52m). Fraport said the development of retail was particularly satisfying, and growth here was 12.1%, with revenues reaching ?33m ($32m).