Airport operator Fraport trimmed its Frankfurt traffic growth forecast for 2006 to "about 1 percent" on Wednesday from a previous estimate of 1.5 percent after 0.4 percent fewer passengers used the airport in August than a year ago. The total was 5.03 million.

But the company said it still sees full-year sales growth of over 2 percent, a 4-5 percent increase in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) and growth of at least 10 percent in net profit.

Fraport blamed the slight fall in passengers at Frankfurt on capacity restraints as it waits for a new runway to go into service in 2010.

"We can no longer meet the major airlines' requests for attractive landing and departure slots and increasingly have to decline their requests," Chief Executive Wilhelm Bender said in a statement.

WestLB analyst Frank Skodzik said: "Although the capacity constraints at Frankfurt Airport are a well-known problem, the weak traffic trend for August suggests that the actual negative impact from these constraints might be stronger than we had expected."

But he added: "This reiteration in financial guidance is likely to be based on an on-going good performance in the retail business, which is able to compensate for the shortfall in passenger numbers."

Across the six airports of the Fraport group, passengers rose 4.8 percent to about 7.6 million passengers in August, driven by Turkey's Antalya and Germany's Frankfurt-Hahn, which is a base for European low-cost carrier Ryanair.

Fraport's international terminal at Antalya serviced 44.8 percent more passengers following a deal with authorities giving it an improved share of traffic at the airport. Hahn handled 22.2 percent more.

Cargo tonnage over the six airports rose by 15 percent, helped by Frankfurt, which handled 13 percent more air freight in August.

Fraport's main airline customer at Frankfurt, Lufthansa, said this week the number of passengers it carried in August rose 3.5 percent to 4.73 million, boosted by European and Asia-Pacific travel.