After the reopening of terminal B, Lux-Airport intends to maintain the pace of growth with a target of 3.5 million passengers this year Christophe Olinger

After the reopening of terminal B, Lux-Airport intends to maintain the pace of growth with a target of 3.5 million passengers this year Christophe Olinger

With growth exceeding expectations, both in freight (+8.3% to 822,000 tons) and passengers (+12.4% to 3.02 million), Lux-Airport officials said they were pleased with the airport’s results for 2016.

Tom Weisgerber, chairman of the board of directors of the airport company, said that, according to one study, “the airport contributed around €2.6 billion to Luxembourg's gross domestic product, an amount equivalent to 5% of the GDP of the Grand Duchy”.

Findel airport strengthened its position as a key economic player attracting five new airlines added Luxembourg to their networks last year: Hop!, Lot, Aegean Airlines, Flybe and Ryanair.

Their results are not yet known, but they will certainly have contributed to the peak of activity in December 2016 (+ 22.1% compared to 2015). Ryanair and Lot were already among the top 10 airlines by number of passengers out of the 15 that were in operation.

The most popular was Porto, with 232,436 passengers (+39%), ahead of Munich (208,918, +26%) and London City (183,570, -2%).

Luxair remains the most popular airline, with 57% market share and 1.7 million passengers transported (+2%). Lufthansa grew by 202% from seventh to second place, with 286,625 passengers. This increase is explained by the takeover of the Frankfurt route, which Luxair stopped serving. Lot closes the podium with a growth of 23%, and 242,869 passengers.

After the reopening of terminal B, Lux-Airport intends to maintain the pace of growth with a target of 3.5 million passengers this year.

“The main driver of this growth is Ryanair, which started in November 2016 with only two destinations and 12 weekly flights,” Lux-Airport's annual report said. “Ryanair will expand to six destinations and 29 weekly flights starting in November.”

Luxair has said it wants to add more flights to its flagship destinations, rather than playing on prices to counter competition. Bari in Italy, and Biarritz in France, are also added to the national airline's destination catalogue, which includes popular holiday destinations such as Hurghadain Egypt, and Djerba in Tunisia.