Munich Airport has posted yet another passenger record: Between the start of January and the end of March 2012, the airport counted about 8.5 million passengers: the highest first-quarter total in its history. This was a growth rate of more than 5 percent, well above the overall German trend. The strong growth in passenger traffic also helped to further improve the average aircraft load factor, which exceeded 70 percent for the first time ever in the first quarter of a calendar year.

The number of take-offs and landings, at approximately 95,000, was 2 percent lower than in the first quarter of 2011. In global cargo traffic, the turnover of flown airfreight at Munich Airport amounted to some 69,000 tons in the first three months of this year – a slight decrease compared with the corresponding 2011 figure.

The growth in passenger traffic at the Bavarian hub was generated mainly on international routes: Long-haul traffic posted a 5 percent gain in the first quarter, and flights to and from continental destinations actually experienced a 7 percent increase. The domestic traffic segment recorded growth of just under 2 percent.

Asian routes were particularly popular among intercontinental travelers. Overall passenger figures for these flights were up by 9 percent. The Near East is still booming: nearly 300,000 passengers traveled between Munich and destinations in that region – an increase of 22 percent. On transatlantic routes, demand was particularly strong for flights to Brazil, which experienced a massive 67 percent rise in total passengers.

Continuing to drive growth in the continental traffic segment are the Eastern European routes, where the passenger total increased by 16 percent to over 1 million. One quarter of this traffic was accounted for by destinations within the Russian Federation, which also posted the largest passenger increase in absolute terms in this region.