INTERNATIONAL. Nearly 4.8 billion passengers arrived and departed the world’s airports in 2007, a growth of +6.8% on the previous year, Airports Council International (ACI) confirmed today following the release of its 2007 World Airport Traffic Report.
Speaking at a conference of African airport executives in Accra, Ghana, ACI Director-General Angela Gittens said that the 2007 growth was a positive sign. But she noted that preliminary data from the first half of 2008 showed that growth was easing.
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Monthly traffic figures for the first five months of 2008 show passenger growth slowing, with a +3% increase.
The World Airport Traffic Report, based on input from 1,200 airports worldwide, advises a cautious outlook for the coming year – pointing to slowing economies, the high price of fuel and airline financial difficulties as major factors.
The long-term forecast, however, remains positive, with an average of +4% growth per year over the next 20 years.
The busiest airports in the world remained in their dominant position: Atlanta stayed on top with over 89 million passengers, followed by Chicago O’Hare (76 million), London Heathrow (68 million), Tokyo Haneda (67 million) and Los Angeles (62 million).
But when international alone traffic is considered, the top five busiest airports are London Heathrow (62 million), Paris Charles de Gaulle (55 million), Amsterdam Schiphol (48 million), Frankfurt (47 million) and Hong Kong (46 million).
The report showed that the fastest growth in passengers occurred in the Middle East with an upswing of +11.3%, followed by Africa (+11.2%) and Asia Pacific (+9.1%).
North America showed the slowest growth, +3.5%, demonstrating the region’s maturity as well as its capacity and congestion issues.
Europe showed growth of +7.4% and, with 31% of world passengers, looks set to overtake North America (32%) as the largest region for air traffic in the next few years if current growth patterns hold.
The growth in aircraft movements at +2.4% against passenger growth of nearly +7% indicates that the industry is moving towards larger aircraft and higher load factors.
Aircraft movements handled by the world’s airports totalled 76.4 million last year. Nine out of the top ten airports with the most aircraft movements are in the US, reflecting domestic and regional traffic’s dominance in that market.
The report also revealed that nine out of the top ten fastest-growing airports in 2007 were in Asia Pacific. The fastest-growing market for passengers was India, with +24% growth, and the largest single market in the world remains the US, which handled 1.4 billion passengers last year. The second largest market was China with 350 million passengers; third was the UK with just under 250 million.
The trend for robust growth at small and medium-sized airports, outpacing growth at large airports, continued in 2007. The under 5 million passenger category grew almost three times faster than more congested and capacity-constrained airports in the over 40 million passenger category.
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