EUROPE. Passenger traffic at Europe’s airport’s posted a +1% increase year-on-year in November, according to the latest figures released by Airports Council International (ACI) Europe. However, as ACI noted, the figure benefits from comparisons with a weak November 2008, when traffic dipped by -8.2%.
The figure for aircraft movements at European airports decreased -1.9% in November when compared with November 2008.
ACI Europe Director General Olivier Jankovec said: “We are finally getting back to a positive air traffic trend, and for the first time since August 2008 less than 50% of European airports lost passengers in November. However passenger traffic keeps underperforming significantly compared to freight, reflecting the fact that the financial crisis is giving way to an employment crisis and low consumer spending throughout Europe.”
He added: “It is all still very fragile and lingering doubts about the sustainability of the recovery of the economy are likely to keep air traffic growth at a very low pace in the coming months.”
The accumulated figure for passenger traffic from January to November 2009 decreased by -6.2% compared with the corresponding period in 2008.
Airports welcoming more than 25 million passengers per year (Group 1), airports welcoming between 10 and 25 million passengers (Group 2), airports welcoming between 5 and 10 million passengers (Group 3) and airports welcoming less than 5 million passengers per year (Group 4) reported an average increase/decrease of +0.8%, -0.7%, +1.1% and +2.5% respectively when compared with November 2008. The same comparison of November 2009 with November 2007 demonstrates an average decrease of -7.5%, -9.7%, -8.4% and -4.6% respectively.
Examples of airports that experienced an increase in passenger traffic per group, when comparing November 2009 with November 2008, include:
• Group 1 airports – Istanbul (+9.3%) Rome Fiumicino (+6.4%), London Gatwick (+4.5%) and Barcelona (+3.8%)
• Group 2 airports – Moscow Domodedovo (+11.5%), Antalya (+11.1%), Geneva (+5.8%) and Hamburg (+3.9%)
• Group 3 airports – Moscow Vnukovo (+20.1%), Milan Linate (+15.1%), Rome Ciampino (+11.1%) and Venice (+8.1%)
• Group 4 airports – Brindisi (+41.4%), Charleroi (+40.6%), Bologna (+27.3%) and Salzburg (+24.2%).
ACI Europe’s Airport Traffic Report for November 2009 includes 110 airports in total.
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