MORE TRAFFIC HIGHS THAN LOWS FOR FRAPORT"S AIRPORTS IN 2019

With the the exception of a handful of airports in Greece and Bulgaria, the Fraport Group's global airport portfolio have all registered an increase in passenger traffic in the first nine months of 2019.

Fraport, which released its global year-to-date traffic figures today, reveals that 54.1 million passengers (+2.3%) passed through Frankfurt Airport (FRA) in the nine months ending September 30.

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It says that the upturn was mainly driven by intercontinental traffic (up 3.4%), while European traffic grew at a slower rate of 1.7%. 

Elsewhere, during the first nine months of 2019, Fortaleza in Brazil (+10.8%), Antalya in Turkey (+10%), St Petersburg in Russia (+8.1%), Mykonos and Aktion/Preveza in Greece (8.6% and 8.3% respectively), Lima in Peru (+6.7%) and Xi'an in China (+6.2%) recorded the biggest increases in throughput.

Indeed, the only airports in its portfolio to report negative results in 2019 to date are Bulgaria's Fraport Twin Star gateways of Bourgas (-11.5%) and Varna (-11.9%); the Greek regioal airports of Corfu (-2.8%), Crete (-1.8%), Kavala (-21.5%) and Rhodes (-0.8%).

While the six million passengers handled at Porto Alegre in Brazil represented a margional year-on-year dip of 0.2%.

Fraport notes that passenger traffic at most of its airports 'decelerated' in September, a slowdown its attributes to "the weaker global economy, as well as the bankruptcy of several airlines and tour operators, with other providers unable to fully absorb the additional capacity immediately."