German low cost airline Air Berlin: Even more passengers in October 26.11.2006 AirBerlin PLC has announced a two-figure growth for October 2006. The airline carried 13.84 per cent more passengers than in the same month of the previous year. In October 2006 that amounted to 1,558,885 (10/2005: 1,369,307). Cumulatively the number carried between January and October 2006 increased by 13.48 per cent, making a total of 13,306,087 passengers (2005: 11,725,599). After the first ten months of the year AirBerlin had almost reached the annual total for 2005 (13.5 million passengers). In October 2006 aircraft utilisation at 83.20 per cent was slightly below the figure for the previous year (10/2005: 85.02) on account of the increased capacity. However, AirBerlin was able to increase overall aircraft utilisation by 1.50 per cent from 79.47 per cent to 80.97 per cent in the first ten months. In October the airports experiencing the highest rates of growth for AirBerlin in Germany were: Frankfurt (+32.0 %), Hanover (+24.5 %), Nuremberg (+23.5 %), Paderborn/Lippstadt (+16 %) and Düsseldorf (+15.4 %). In other countries the highest growth was achieved in London Stansted with 83.8 % again leading the field, followed by Manchester (+66.2 %), Catania (+57.2 %), Milan-Bergamo (+52.6 %) and Zurich (+49.1 %). Published: Air Berlin other article back