Frankfurt Airport (FRA) recorded another month of air cargo volume increase in December, although full-year numbers for 2023 declined.

Europe's busiest cargo airport said air cargo throughput — comprising airfreight and airmail — slipped by 3.9% year-on-year in 2023 to some 1.9 million metric tons.

"Factors contributing to this slowdown included the airspace restrictions across Europe and a sluggish economy resulting from global geopolitical uncertainties," FRA said in a statement.

For the period, aircraft movements in Frankfurt climbed by 12.6% year-on-year in 2023 to 430,436 takeoffs and landings (2019 comparison: down 16.2%). Likewise, accumulated maximum takeoff weights (or MTOWs) grew by 11.4% year-on-year to around 27 million metric tons (2019 comparison: down 15.3%).

 [Source: Frankfurt Airport]

Meanwhile, for December alone, FRA said cargo remained positive, rising by 7.2% year-on-year to 171,118 metric tons in the last month of 2023.

This is, however, slightly lower than the November air cargo volume of 174,258 metric tons handled by Frankfurt Airport.

"As in previous years, cargo benefitted from increased demand during the Christmas period," FRA said.

Dr Stefan Schulte, chief executive officer at Fraport, noted that 2023 was yet "another challenging year for the aviation industry, particularly in Europe."

"In addition to the ongoing war in Ukraine, airspace restrictions were also imposed because of the 'Air Defender' NATO exercise conducted in Germany. The complex and interconnected system of international air traffic was also disrupted by a number of strikes throughout 2023, including walkouts by French air traffic controllers," he said.

"Despite these adverse effects and in a mutual effort with our system partners, we succeeded in further stabilizing operations in Frankfurt last year. Our traffic performance for 2023 clearly demonstrates demand is recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic ... Therefore, I'm optimistic for the new year 2024," Schulte added.