The most difficult year in its history lies behind the Munich Airport Company (FMG).
The pandemic nearly brought air traffic to a standstill for months in 2020 - and things didn't go much better for the first five months of this year.
After the third wave subsided in late spring, the economic recovery phase is now also beginning in Erdinger Moos.
Munich Airport - In 2020, FMG lost 37 million passengers, only 11.1 million took off and landed. The number of take-offs and landings fell by 65 percent. Now the Moos-Airport is in the recovery phase. 24,000 flights are planned for the summer holidays and the airport is very crowded, making the summer travel business all the more important for FMG and airlines. Of course, this is still well below the pre-Corona level.
In its policy letter, FMG now takes stock of the first year of the corona disaster.
Only 11.1 million passengers used Moos-Airport for take-off or landing in 2020.
This is the lowest result since the airport opened in May 1992. The pandemic cost Germany's second largest airport 37 million passengers compared to 2019.
"There has never been a comparable decline," write Vanessa Haumberger, Head of Politics at FMG, and Hans-Joachim Bues, Head of Corporate Communications.
This comparison illustrates the dimensions of the downturn: with more than six million passengers, more passengers were recorded in the months of January and February that were not yet affected by the pandemic than in all ten subsequent months combined.
The number of take-offs and landings fell by a whopping 65 percent - in numbers: by 270,000 to 147,000. The drop in air freight is less drastic. Last year it was 151,000 tons. "The more moderate decrease of a good half compared to the number of passengers shows, among other things, the great importance of freight in the provision of medical goods", sum up Haumberger and Bues.
Where no planes take off or land and no people fill the terminals, shops and restaurants, sales plummet. FMG puts it at 580 million euros, which means a decrease of around 64 percent compared to the previous year when it was 1.6 billion euros. The bottom line was that FMG closed the financial year with a loss of 320 million euros. For comparison: in the previous year there had been a profit of 178 million euros. This year too, FMG boss Jost Lammers has to be prepared for the red.
The group had already made massive changes in the spring "to limit losses and secure liquidity," as it says in the policy letter. Short-time working was introduced for the majority of the approximately 10,000 employees, Terminal 1 and the T2 satellite were shut down - the latter is still inactive today - and investments have been postponed. According to Haumberger and Bues, this resulted in savings of around 530 million euros.
Summer tourist traffic will not turn around yet, but at least it will bring about an initial stabilization of the tense economic situation. "We expect significant increases in flights, destinations and passengers," says Lammers confidently. According to the airline's registrations, around 24,000 flights to 175 destinations are planned by mid-September, the end of the school holidays in Bavaria. The peak day was reached on the first day of the holiday, July 31, with 561 registered passenger flights. The daily average during the holidays is 517 take-offs and landings, almost 200 flights more than in June of this year, according to a spokesman for FMG. During the summer holidays, the volume of traffic will thus reach almost half of the pre-crisis level.
Most international flights lead to Spain with over 1000 departures during the summer holidays - especially to destinations in the Balearic and Canary Islands.
825 machines take off for Greece.
Heraklion, Athens, Thessaloniki and Rhodes are most frequently visited here.
In the next six weeks, planes will take off 750 times to Italian destinations: In addition to Rome, Milan and Naples, there are 14 other Italian destinations.
There are a total of nine destinations in Turkey, with most of the flights going to Antalya, Istanbul and Ankara.
In Portugal, Lisbon, Faro, Porto and the Atlantic island of Madeira are offered.
Despite strict entry restrictions, over 300 connections to North America and Canada have been registered.
The Gulf region with Doha, Dubai and Abu Dhabi is also back on the daily schedule at Munich Airport.
