Frankfurt Airport (FRA) reported another month of cargo decline in January as the continuing global economic slowdown and impact of the Russia-Ukraine war continued to weigh on its performance.

Europe's busiest cargo airport recorded an 18.8% decline year-on-year in January, which is in contrast with the double-digit increase recorded in its passenger numbers for the first month of 2023.

"Cargo throughput continued to decline ... compared to January 2022. [This is] once again due to the overall economic slowdown and the suspension of flights to Russia," FRA said in a statement.

The major European gateway noted that January 2023 was also particularly affected by the Chinese New Year celebrations, which began earlier than last year and have always resulted in declining cargo volumes.  

Meanwhile, FRA saw aircraft movements increased by 20.6% to 29,710 takeoffs and landings as accumulated maximum takeoff weights (MTOWs) grew by 15.4% to about 1.9 million metric tons (in both cases compared with January 2022).

For the month, the number of passengers at FRA increased to roughly 3.7 million in January 2023 or 65.5% more than in January 2022.