Frankfurt winter 2011/12 timetable: 4% increase in flights; up to 90 flights p/hr now possible
Germany's Frankfurt International Airport stated (26-Oct-2011) 107 passenger airlines will operate 4285 weekly departures to 111 countries and 30 freighter airlines will offer 240 weekly departures to 84 destinations in 45 countries over the winter 2011/12 timetable, effective 30-Oct-2011. The new timetable features extra capacity following the recent inauguration of the airport's new Runway Northwest. In the first phase of the airport's capacity expansion, the number of planned services will grow from an average of 83 to up to 90 takeoffs and landings per hour. The total number of departures (passenger, cargo, and other) will increase by 3.7% year-on-year to 4535 per week this winter season, while total seat capacity via Frankfurt increasing 7.1% to 715,000 seats per week. Details include:
- Intercontinental traffic: Lufthansa will resume services to Rio de Janeiro (five times weekly) and ANA will operate B787 services from Tokyo Haneda;
- New destinations: Will include San Juan (twice weekly by Condor) and Ras al Khaimah (weekly by RAK Airways);
- Frequency increases: Emirates will offer seven times weekly service from Dubai from 01-Dec-2011 and United Airlines will operate twice daily from Newark from 03-Jan-2012. Singapore Airlines, meanwhile, will deploy A380 equipment from Singapore via Frankfurt to New York from 15-Jan-2012;
- Europe traffic: Various new routes will be introduced from Frankfurt to the UK, including three times daily Lufthansa service to Aberden, twice daily Lufthansa service to London Gatwick, 16 weekly services to Nottingham/East Midlands by British Midland Airways, 12 times weekly service to Bergamo by Air Dolomiti and twice weekly Lufthansa service to Klagenfurt;
- Domestic traffic: Air Berlin will cancel Frankfurt-Hamburg services, operated up to five times daily, while Lufthansa will expand its flights from Frankfurt to Munich by six to a total of 96 weekly services. [more - original PR]