Germany’s largest airport has to adapt to changing travel habits. Many morning and evening take-offs and landings.
The summer results aren’t exactly flattering for Frankfurt Airport. Long waits, lost luggage and thousands of canceled flights have made life difficult for tourists. Especially when it comes to flight cancellations, Germany’s largest airport is far ahead, as Oskar de Felice, head of the legal department of the Flightright passenger portal, reports: “Frankfurt airport is one of the worst hit airports. cancellations in Europe this summer. “In June Secondo de Felice, more than 1,600 departures were canceled between July and August, representing about three and a half percent of total departures. Of the 20 largest European airports, Oslo alone had a higher rate of canceled flights, and as a result, an above-average number of air travelers turned to Flightright about problems at Frankfurt airport.
Interviewed by FR, the airport operator Fraport reported that operations during the summer holidays were “stable and orderly”. While there was a lot of activity in the terminals during the holidays, there were no excessive waiting times. Mathias Venema, head of the department responsible for the airport of the green services union, can confirm that at least the security checks “went quite well”. Compared to other airports such as Cologne and Düsseldorf, the problems with security checks were “relatively harmless”. Sometimes there were three to four hour waiting times at the airports there. As the problems were known, many tourists chose Frankfurt airport for their departure, according to Venema.
What an organizational problem has already been described. “In 2022, Frankfurt airport almost turned into a holiday airport,” says Venema. While long-haul flights to Asia or business flights to major German and European cities are still in short supply, so-called hot water destinations were particularly in demand. Because even at airports such as Leipzig and Hanover, such travel destinations are offered less frequently than before the pandemic. In June Fraport counted almost five million passengers in Frankfurt and in July even more than five million. While it is still significantly lower than before the pandemic, flights are more loosely spread throughout the day. Because vacationers like to leave as early as possible in the morning and only come back in the evening. Fraport reported this summer of “extreme traffic spikes, sometimes above pre-crisis levels”.
These spikes were particularly problematic in ground handling services, which were completely understaffed. This explains the sometimes growing baggage chaos. While passengers could still be handled by individual airlines and outside companies, their bags simply couldn’t keep up at peak times. Fraport admits that on the individual days of June and July there was “a four-digit number of bags” that should have been sent later. Individual bags had to be removed from the baggage transport system and stored temporarily. This was necessary to ensure the continuous daily flow of baggage. According to Fraport, since the end of July “there are no more baggage to be forwarded outside the baggage transport system”. Verdi’s head of department, Venema, was also told that the handling of suitcases had improved significantly during the summer holidays, but it was still not good. According to Venema, the reason things were worse before the Hessian summer vacation than during the holidays is a tactical decision by the ground handling services. In June, for example, many new hires were trained by experienced staff for the holiday rush. However, that training staff was also missing before the summer holidays. However, as summer started well before the holidays, the overall balance isn’t exactly brilliant.
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