September 11, 2024
At the end of the Bavarian summer holidays, Munich Airport can report strong traffic figures: 6.2 million passengers used the airport in the past six weeks, ten percent more than in the previous year. The peak day was Sunday, September 1st – on that day 143,000 passengers passed through Munich Airport. The high demand for air travel was also reflected in the load factor of the aircraft: This was 86 percent during the holidays - an absolute record value. During the holiday season, airlines carried out 46,000 takeoffs and landings in Munich – an increase of 7.6 percent compared with the number of flights during the previous year's summer vacation.
In terms of passenger volume, the airport thus reaches 91 percent of the record year 2019. With regard to intercontinental travelers, the 2019 figures were exceeded by 14 percent on flights to North America. The number of passengers traveling to and from Mediterranean countries reached pre-crisis levels during the 2024 summer holidays.
In Terminal 2, which is used by Lufthansa and its partner airlines, the number of passengers during the holiday season exceeded the pre-crisis level for the first time on 19 days.
However, numerous thunderstorms or restrictions in European airspace on certain days led to delays or slightly longer waiting times throughout Germany. Nevertheless, the rapid on-boarding of the many new employees led to stable processes around passenger and aircraft handling.
The increasing digitalization of services at the airport also contributed to the acceleration of processes: For example, every third airline passenger departing from Munich used the luggage machines in the terminals where you can drop off your suitcases yourself. The automated passport control and the increased use of modern CT scanners at security control also contributed to more efficient processing. Despite the current spatial restrictions due to the modernization work on the security controls, the airport recorded regular operations. The majority of work on the Central Security Control in Terminal 2 will be completed this year.
