The airport also posted new monthly and one-day records: In September almost 3.5 million passengers used Munich Airport. A new all-time high for total passengers in a single day, namely 128,649, was also set in the third quarter, on Friday, September 24, 2010. The record proved short-lived, however, and was topped just a week later, on October 1, 2010, when a new mark of 129,707 was set. The number of aircraft movements also showed improvement in the third quarter, with a gain of 3 percent.

The boom in traffic was not only a reflection of the continuing stable demand for personal travel. The business travel section also picked up noticeably and contributed to the strong traffic growth. During the first nine months of 2010, a total of 26 million passengers used Munich Airport – a 5 percent increase on the previous year.

Key factors driving this improved performance were the European traffic segment, which was up by 9 percent, and intercontinental traffic, where passenger traffic jumped by 20 percent, boosted above all by new long-haul connections offered by All Nippon Airways (Tokyo), Continental Airlines (New York), Oman Air (Muscat) and Singapore Airlines (Singapore). In absolute terms, nearly half of the intercontinental traffic increases resulted from the new flights.

In addition to passenger traffic, the freight segment has also benefitted enormously from the resurgent economy. Never before has the airport handled as much freight in the first nine months of the year: The new record is now just under 200,000 tons of flown airfreight, a massive 29 percent increase over the same period in 2009. The increased import and export tonnage at Munich Airport is mainly attributable to co-loaded freight on long-haul flights.