Frankfurt Airport reports passenger and cargo growth in March 2026

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Around 4.7 million passengers used Frankfurt Airport (FRA) in March 2026. Traffic in the reporting month saw year-on-year growth of 2.1 percent, despite extraordinary effects resulting from two strike days and the current geopolitical situation. Around 100,000 passengers at FRA were affected by Lufthansa strikes that took place in mid-March. The consequences of the Iran war led to a significant 68.6 percent fall in traffic bound for the Middle East during the reporting month. However, this decline was compensated by robust growth for destinations in Africa (up 22.3 percent) and the Far East (Thailand +32.4 percent; India +22.2 percent; China +22.2 percent).

Traffic at Frankfurt also grew across the quarter as a whole. In the first three months of 2026, a total of 12.7 million passengers used Germany’s gateway to the world. This equates to growth of 2.3 percent.

During the reporting month, cargo volumes at FRA (airfreight + airmail) increased by 0.4 percent, to 185,486 metric tons. The number of aircraft movements reduced by 1.1 percent, with 34,892 takeoffs and landings. Total maximum takeoff weights (or MTOWs) were around 2.2 million metric tons. This represented a year-on-year decrease of 1.9 percent compared to the same month in 2025.

Outside Germany, Fraport saw growth across all markets. At Slovenia’s Ljubljana Airport (LJU), traffic rose by 17.0 percent year-on-year. A total of 110,615 passengers used the Slovenian capital’s airport in March 2026. Fraport’s two Brazilian airports, Fortaleza (FOR) and Porto Alegre (POA), recorded a combined increase of 18.2 percent to 1.2 million passengers. Peru’s Lima Airport (LIM) saw growth of 1.4 percent in March, to around 2.1 million passengers. Fraport’s 14 Greek airports were used by a total of 889,043 passengers. This equates to an increase of 6.9 percent. In Bulgaria, the two coastal airports of Burgas (BOJ) and Varna (VAR) recorded 91,770 passengers (up 19.6 percent). Meanwhile, traffic at Antalya Airport (AYT) on the Turkish Riviera rose by 10.3 percent to 1.2 million passengers.

The total number of passengers at all airports actively managed by Fraport increased by 5.1 percent year-on-year to around 10.3 million in March 2026. Overall traffic across the Group for the first quarter rose by 5.2 percent to 28.6 million passengers.