Munich Airport (MUC) opened in May 1992. A month later, Continental Airlines, which later merged with United Airlines, provided the airport with its first flight to the US. On August 26th, 2024, Munich Airport celebrated a significant milestone for the US market – since that first flight to the US in 1992, 50 million passengers have traveled to the US from MUC.
US market growth
Durinairport’sport’s opening stint featured only 39 departures per week to five US destinations. However, since that first flight 32 years ago, growth in the US travel sector has skyrocketed. Today, the airport features 140 departures to 14 American airports weekly, an impressive feat.
Photo: Markus Mainka | Shutterstock
According to Aviation Source, some other impressive numbers regarding the Munich–US market include:
- 44,000 weekly departures per direction
- Over 90% seat capacity
- Three million annual passengers in 2023
- Higher monthly passenger counts compared to pre-pandemic levels following June 2022.
- More than 355,000 passengers in June 2024 alone.
The rapid growth shows Munich Airport’s importance in the European market and its place in global air travel. The leading operators to the US at MUC include Lufthansa, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Air Lines. The continued patronage of these airlines has heavily contributed to MUC’s growth.
Passengers from MUC can travel to major US destinations, including Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, and New York City. Most of the airlines mentioned above operate high-capacity flights to these destinations. For example, Lufthansa operates four daily Airbus A380 flights to US destinations.
In addition, many US destinations feature multiple daily flights from MUC. The high frequency of flights shows the high demand for these routes. Seven destinations have various flights daily, with Chicago topping the list with three. They are:
- Charlotte (twice daily)
- Chicago (thrice daily)
- Denver (twice daily)
- Newark (twice daily)
- San Francisco (twice daily)
- Washington-Dulles (twice daily)
- New York (twice daily, thrice a week)
Thriving, not just surviving
The US market is not the only area where MUC is seeing growth and success. The entire operation is growing rapidly. Data for the first half of 2024 shows an increase in intercontinental traffic of 19% over last year.
Photo: Joe Kunzler | Simple Flying
Data also shows:
- Commercial traffic has increased 14.8% over 2023, with passenger volume increasing from 16,635,819 to 19,092,012.
- The overall number of aircraft movements has increased by 10.3% from 141,504 takeoffs and landings to 156,080.
- Cargo and freight operations have also grown, with MUC’s handling of air freight and mail increasing by 11% from 132,404 to 147,006.
Travel to Asia has also returned to pre-pandemic levels this year, with 1.2 million passengers departing from MUC to the Far East in the last six months.
Forecasts for the airport show no signs of growth slowing down shortly. Using increasingly efficient aircraft, such as the Airbus A350 and Boeing 787, has allowed airlines to switch to point-to-point models and offer long-haul flights on thinner routes. This summer, more than 140 weekly flights will be operated using the A350, and the number will increase to 170 by autumn. airport’sport’s route network is also growing steadily. Today, more than 160 destinations worldwide are available for passengers departing from MUC. 47 of these are intercontinental routes.
Munich Airport
- IATA/ICAO Code
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MUC/EDDM
- CEO
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Jost Lammers
- Terminals
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Terminal 1 | Terminal 2