HONG KONG. A strong March for both regions meant ACI Asia Pacific member airports in Asia Pacific and the Middle East finished the first quarter of 2013 with significant gains in terms of overall passenger traffic.
According to latest ACI Passenger and Freight Flash Reports, Asia Pacific airports recorded +9.3% year-on-year passenger traffic growth in March 2013 with airports in the Middle East recording +15.4%.
This meant that, for the first three months of the year, traffic was up +6.4% year-on-year in Asia Pacific and +12.6% in the Middle East.
Beijing was the busiest airport in the region with close to 20 million passengers in Q1 2013, +4.8% more than Q1 2012. Dubai was the busiest in terms of international passenger traffic, welcoming 16.5 million passengers, up +15.6%.
Other airports in the region recording double-digit growth in Q1 2013 included Kuala Lumpur (+11.0%), Seoul Incheon (+11.5%), Kunming (+21.7%), Hangzhou (+12.8%), Xiamen (+14.5%), Osaka Kansai (+19.0%) and Abu Dhabi (+15.9%).
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Air cargo traffic registered a year-on-year decline of -1.1% at Asia-Pacific airports in March 2013, while Middle Eastern airports recorded a +8.7% increase. For the whole quarter, air cargo traffic was down -1.0% in Asia-Pacific and up +9.8% in the Middle East.
