Frankfurt Airport’s (FRA) traffic during the past three months continues to provide optimism as the drop in aircraft movements, as well as airfreight and airmail continued to slow slightly, Fraport said in a statement.

Aircraft movements dropped only 4.4 per cent year-on-year to 40,666 takeoffs and landings and with 146,259 tonnes of cargo handled in May, Frankfurt’s airfreight slowdown narrowed to 17.1 per cent. At 2.37 million tonnes, maximum takeoff weights (MTOWs) were only 4.8 per cent below the comparable month last year. FRA served a total of 4.4 million passengers in May, down 6.3 per cent year-on-year.

Traffic decline rates also shrank over the entire January-to-May 2009 period. Airfreight throughput reached 674,258 tonnes, down 22.5 per cent for the first five months of the year. A total of 19.6 million passengers resulted in a cumulative loss of 8.6 per cent. With 187,770 takeoffs and landings, aircraft movements dropped 6 per cent belowthe previous year’s level.