The IATA winter season 23/24 is halfway over and it's time for an update. Winter in Nuremberg and therefore also at NUE Airport is always something special: the world-famous Christkindlesmarkt takes place in December and the trade fairs also attract visitors from all over the world to the city.

In 2020 and 2021, the Nuremberg Christkindlesmarkt had to be suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The year 2023 was the second Christkindlesmarkt after the pandemic, which once again showed that the popularity of the market is unbroken: around 2 million visitors came to the "City of Wood and Cloth". This is particularly impressive when you consider that 2023 was a truly outstanding year, with 24 days being the shortest possible period. Hotels and restaurants reported an occupancy rate of 90 percent on the Advent weekends.

Throughout the NUE winter, trade fairs are a major factor in the volume of traffic on the apron: a major international trade fair is held on the exhibition grounds approximately every other week. These business travellers are heavily dependent on good connecting traffic to Nuremberg. By way of comparison, the seat load factor of full-service carriers is 10 to 16 percentage points higher on trade fair days as opposed to throughout the year. This can be seen particularly clearly in our analysis in the chart below. Our current forecast is that the FSC presence will be reduced in 2024. We are therefore working intensively with our partners to improve our connections, particularly for business travellers to and from the region.