Cologne-Bonn Airport Reports a Bumper 2016

Passenger and Cargo results exceed expectations
It seems that the decision taken a couple of years ago to hook-in more low cost carriers (LCC) has paid off for Cologne-Bonn Airport.
A total of 11.9 million passengers moved through the airport. This was 1.6 million more, or an increase of 15 percent over 2015.
This result gave CGN the ranking as the airport with the strongest growth factor in Germany during the previous year.
CGN presently holds the fifth ranking in Germany with regards to traffic movements.

Michael Garvens, CGN’s CEO, stated that 2016 was one of the best years in the company’s history and that much of the past year’s success lies with the expansion of the Low Cost Carriers, especially the continued increase of flights by the Lufthansa daughter company, Eurowings as well as that of the Irish LCC, Ryanair.

Eurowings which started services from CGN in November 2015, has continuously expanded its Low-Cost network from CGN to destinations in Asia, the Caribbean and the United States. Eurowings carried a total of 470.000 passengers on their long-haul routes during the past year.
The same basically applies to Ryanair which in 2016 served 25 destinations from CGN and is in the meantime the second largest passenger customer at the airport.

Cargo gains on 2015
The cargo department was not to be outdone by their passenger colleagues.
Air cargo is now the second most important segment for CGN and the results for 2016 show a total of 786.000 tonnes moved, an increase of 4 percent on the previous year.
Cologne-Bonn is now ranked second behind Leipzig Airport as the most important airport for the handling of express freight.
Garvens added in his comments that the air cargo division remains as the second most important pillar for the airport and is seen as being very important for the long-term development of the airport.
The Eurowings long haul flights with Airbus A330 aircraft is also important for the cargo development at CGN as these aircraft can carry up to 25 tons of belly cargo, depending on routing and passenger loads.

All in all - a good year
The airport announced a net profit after all taxes of euro 6.3 million. This is an increase of euro 5.1 million compared to the previous year.
The largest revenue segment remained with the general line flight operations.
Personnel costs rose above 2015 to euro 120 million. An Increase of just over 2 million euros which was mainly due to early retirement payments.

The CGN managers also report a good start to 2017 with increased passenger loads.
Air freight handled in the first months of this year has risen by around 7 percent and the airport reckons with an annual tonnage of 800.000 tonnes for the year.

John Mc Donagh