Marked slowdown in passenger traffic growth signals trouble ahead

December 5, 2011 flight2000it

Following several months of significant disparity between trends in passenger and freight traffic, the October figures of airport traffic in Europe reveal a significant slowdown in European passenger traffic growth. The overall passenger traffic at European airports increased by +3.4% in October 2011 compared with October 2010 – half the growth rate airports saw in September. Meanwhile the entrenchment of overall freight traffic in negative figures continued, with European airports registering a decrease of -4.9% in October 2011 when compared with the corresponding month in 2010. The overall figure for movements at European airports increased +1.3% in October 2011 when compared with October 2010.

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 +3.1%, +2.7%, +5.1% and +4.0% respectively when compared with October 2010. The same comparison of October 2011 with October 2009 demonstrates an average increase of +10.8%, +13.6%, +16.9% and +4.0% respectively.

Examples of airports that experienced the highest increase in passenger traffic per group, when comparing October 2011 with October 2010, include:

Group 1 airports – Istanbul IST (+19.8%), Barcelona (+9.5%), Amsterdam (+6.8%) and Paris ORY (+4.5%)

Group 2 airports – Moscow SVO (+10.2%), Istanbul SAW (+10.0%), Helsinki (+9.6%) and Stockholm ARN (+9.0%)

Group 3 airports – Venice (+33.7%), Kiev (+20.1%), Ibiza (+19.7%), and Tenerife TFS (+14.5%)

Group 4 airports – Vilnius (+51.0%), Bourgas (+49.7%), Tallinn (+37.0%) and Tirana (+29.2%)

The ‘ACI EUROPE Airport Traffic Report – October 2011’ includes 171 airports in total. These airports represent approximately 88% of European passenger traffic.

Source: ACI EUROPE