Press Releases & News

Vienna Airport: 5.9% Passenger decline in January 2015
Positive outlook for the entire year forecasting an increase in passenger volume of up to 2% remains unchanged.
The number of passengers handled by Vienna Airport declined in January 2015 as expected. Passenger volume fell by 5.9% from the prior-year period to a total of 1,323,682. In addition to the negative consequences of the crisis situation in Russia and the Ukraine and the related drop in transfer traffic, this decrease can be mainly attributed to the cutback in the flight offering on the part of Austrian Airlines. In contrast, Qatar Airways, Iberia and Air France-KLM reported substantial passenger growth. The new destinations added to the flight plan of Air China and Ethiopian in 2014 also developed well.   


From a traffic perspective, Flughafen Wien AG expects a negative passenger development in the first quarter, as it already announced in the middle of January 2015. The airport anticipates an improvement of the situation in the course of the year, with total passenger volume predicted to rise between 0% and 2%. Added impetus will be provided by the planned frequency increases by the airlines and the addition of new routes, for example to destinations in the USA, Italy, Greece, France, Spain, Turkey, Estonia, Moldova, Montenegro and Switzerland.
 
Vienna Airport reported an 18.5% decrease in January 2015 in the number of transfer passengers compared to January 2014. This decline is almost completely due to the above-mentioned drop in capacity by Austrian Airlines. The number of local passengers fell by     1.2% in the same period. Total air cargo was down 1.1% in January 2015. The number of flight movements fell by 4.5 %, whereas the Maximum Take Off Weight also declined slightly by 0.6%.   
 
The number of passengers flying to Western Europe was down 5.1% in January 2015, in contrast to the 18.8% drop in passenger traffic to Eastern Europe, related, amongst other reasons, to the prevailing crisis in Russia and the Ukraine. The Middle East region showed a rise of 0.2% in January 2015, whereas passenger volume to destinations in the Far East decreased by 1.6%. The number of passengers flying to North American destinations showed a strong increase, climbing by 15.1% compared to January 2014. Passenger traffic to Africa developed well, rising by 54.9% from the previous year.
 
The strategic investments of Flughafen Wien AG developed well. Malta Airport reported  passenger growth of 4.8% to 208,903 passengers in January 2015. The number of passengers handled by Kosice Airport climbed by 5.4% to 17,006, according to preliminary figures.
 
Results in detail
 
 
Please address inquiries to Corporate Communications of Flughafen Wien AG:
Peter Kleemann (+43-1-) 7007-23000
Clemens Schleinzer (+43-1-) 7007-22399
Stefanie Tomanek (+43-1-) 7007-26939
p.kleemann@viennaairport.com
c.schleinzer@viennaairport.com
s.tomanek@viennaairport.com