At Cologne/Bonn Airport, the year 2020 was shaped by contrasting developments in terms of traffic volumes. The coronavirus pandemic saw passenger numbers plummeting to levels never experienced before, yet the crisis also brought positive developments for air freight.
In the final analysis, the airport recorded passenger numbers of 3.1 million in the past year, which is equivalent to just a quarter of the figure for the previous year. Our second source of income, air freight, experienced an above-average rate of growth during the crisis year: by the end of December 2020, 863,000 tonnes of goods had been handled – six percent more than in the year before.
“2020 was a year of considerable challenges. We would therefore like to extend a special thank you to all our employees. After the unprecedented shock of 2020, we are very hopeful that we will be able to get back a little bit of the normality of pre-corona times during the course of the year, so that people will be able to start flying again,” says Johan Vanneste, Chair of the Management Board of Flughafen Köln/Bonn GmbH. “The airport is anticipating that passenger numbers will reach up to 50% of pre-crisis levels in 2021.”
In 2020, the coronavirus had a devastating impact on passenger traffic. Many airlines were forced to suspend the greater part of their services during the pandemic or cut back their offering to just a few key routes. Although a high of more than 10,000 passengers per day was in the meantime once again achieved during the summer – almost thirty percent of the normal level – the figures went back down again in the subsequent months due to a new set of travel restrictions.
In December, an average of 2,500 passengers per day took off or landed in Cologne/Bonn – considered across the whole month, this amounted to a rise of eleven percent. The three largest markets for 2020 were Turkey, Spain and the domestic German market, with non-business travellers making up the largest part of the total.
