EUROPE. Amid the continuing crisis in the Eurozone, passenger traffic growth at European airports slowed down in May according to the latest figures released by ACI Europe. Overall passenger traffic increased by +1.0% year-on-year, although the freight sector shrank for the 11th consecutive month, and was down by -5.4% in May.
The May figures confirm the growing chasm between EU and non-EU airports with regard to growth. Within the EU, traffic was down by -0.3% in May; airports outside the EU enjoyed growth of +6.6%.
Airports welcoming more than 25 million passengers per year (Group 1), those welcoming between 10 and 25 million passengers (Group 2), 5 and 10 million passengers (Group 3) and less than 5 million passengers per year (Group 4) reported average year-on-year increases of +0.8%, +0.3%, +2.9% and +0.4% respectively.
The airports posting the highest growth within each group in May were as follows:
Group 1: Istanbul Atatürk (+19.8%), Barcelona El Prat (+2.7%), London Gatwick (+2.0%), Amsterdam Schiphol (+1.5%) and Frankfurt (+1.4%).
Group 2: Moscow Sheremetyevo (+15.2%), Nice Côte d’Azur (+10.8%), Geneva (+8.2%), Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen (+5.6%) and Oslo Gardermoen (+4.3%).
Group 3: Bucharest Henri Coanda (+53.0%), Marseille Provence (+17.2%), Venice Marco Polo (+15.5%), Warsaw Frederic Chopin (+14.0%) and Charleroi (+13.1%).
Group 4: Vatry (+107.0%), Paphos (+36.2%), Sandefjord (+35.2%), Haugesund (+21.2%) and Lille (+20.2%).
NOTE: The ‘ACI Europe Airport Traffic Report – May 2012’ includes 171 airports in total. These airports represent over 88% of European passenger traffic.
