The summer budget at Frankfurt airport is bad

Germany’s largest airport has to adapt to changing travel habits. Many take offs and landings in the morning and evening.

The summer results are not exactly flattering for Frankfurt Airport. Long waits, lost luggage and thousands of canceled flights have made life difficult for holidaymakers. 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 passenger portal Flightright reports: “Frankfurt airport is one of the airports most affected by cancellations in Europe this summer. According to de Felice, more than 1,600 departures were canceled in July and August, representing about three and a half percent of total departures. Of the 20 largest European airports, only Oslo had a higher rate of flight cancellations.As a result, more than the average number of air travelers have turned to Flightright about issues at Frankfurt Airport.

At FR’s request, airport operator Fraport reported that operations during the summer holidays were “stable and orderly”. While there was a lot of activity in the terminals over the holidays, there weren’t excessive waiting times. Mathias Venema, head of the department responsible for the airport at the Verdi services union, can confirm that at least the security checks “actually went quite well”. Compared to other airports such as Cologne and Düsseldorf, problems with security checks were “relatively harmless”. There were sometimes waiting times of three to four hours at the airports there. Since the problems were known, many holidaymakers chose Frankfurt airport for their departure, according to Venema.

What organizational problem is already described. “In 2022, Frankfurt Airport has 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, the so-called hot water destinations were in particular 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 nearly five million passengers in Frankfurt, and in July even more than five million. While still significantly lower than before the pandemic, flights are more sparsely distributed throughout the day. Because vacationers like to leave as early as possible in the morning and only return in the evening. Fraport reported “extreme traffic spikes, sometimes exceeding pre-crisis levels,” this summer.

These peaks were particularly problematic in the ground handling services, which were completely understaffed. This explains the sometimes growing baggage chaos. While passengers could still be processed by individual airlines and outside companies, their bags simply couldn’t keep up during peak hours. Fraport admits that on individual days in June and July, there was “a four-digit number of bags” that should have been shipped later. Individual bags had to be removed from the baggage handling system and stored temporarily. This was necessary to ensure the continuous daily flow of baggage. According to Fraport, since the end of July “there is no more baggage to be forwarded outside the baggage handling system”. Verdi’s department head, Venema, was also told that the handling of suitcases had improved significantly during the summer holidays, but was still not good. According to Venema, the reason why things were worse before the Hessian summer holidays than during the holidays is a tactical decision by the groundhandling services. In June, for example, many new hires were trained by seasoned staff for the holiday rush. However, even those training personnel were missing before the summer holidays. However, since the summer started well before the holidays, the overall balance is not exactly brilliant.