Frankfurt Airport saw traffic increase slightly in September, despite a sharp fall in passenger numbers flying to the Middle East from Germany’s main hub.
Many airlines, including the Lufthansa Group, have suspended flights to Israel and some neighbouring countries as the conflict in the region has intensified in recent weeks and spread into Lebanon.
Fraport, which operates Frankfurt Airport, said the German hub catered for 5.8 million passengers in September, which was an increase of 1.2 per cent compared with the same month in 2023.
In September, Frankfurt benefited from “very dynamic growth” to the Americas and Asia, where traffic to China, Singapore and India all saw double-digit year-on-year growth. But this was more than offset by a 27.8 per cent fall in passengers to the Middle East.
Meanwhile, domestic traffic from Frankfurt grew by 1.3 per cent year-on-year and European passenger numbers increased by 2.6 per cent in September.
Frankfurt’s total traffic for the first nine months of the year reached 46.7 million passengers, which was an increase of 4.9 per cent compared with the same period of 2023 but was still 13.8 per cent below 2019’s corresponding passenger levels.
Lufthansa Group’s airlines have currently suspended flights to and from Tel Aviv until 31 October, while flights to Beirut are cancelled until 30 November. Lufthansa has also cancelled services to Tehran up to and including 26 October for “operational reasons”.