ASIA PACIFIC/MIDDLE EAST. Airports in the Asia Pacific region experienced +7.2% growth in passenger traffic last year, with Middle East airports recording an increase of +10.1%. That’s according to data from ACI Asia Pacific.
The organisation attributed the strong growth in Asia Pacific to robust domestic economic growth and the rising propensity for travel. International traffic was up +8.6% while domestic traffic rose +6.4%.
As previously reported, international passenger traffic at the world’s airports climbed by +5.2% year-on-year in 2013, according to ACI. Total traffic was up by +3.9% and domestic traffic by +2.7%.
The busiest airport in the Asia Pacific/Middle East region was Beijing, which handled more than 83 million passengers, up +2.2% from 2012. Tokyo Haneda followed with 69 million, up +2.6%.
Among other major airports, Dubai International saw traffic rise by +15.2% to 66 million, with Jakarta and Hong Kong airports experiencing +3.4% and +6.3% uplifts respectively.
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According to ACI, over 30% of the airports in the region recorded double-digit growth in passenger traffic in 2013. The top performers were mostly smaller airports, including Xishuangbanna (+32.1%), Chiang Mai (+21.7%) and Siem Reap (+19.8%).
Other airports with double-digit growth included Kunming (+24.0%), Hangzhou (+15.7%), Xiamen (+14.9%) in China; Kuala Lumpur (+19.1%), Kota Kinabalu (+18.6%), Kuching (+16.4%) and Penang (+15.1%) in Malaysia; and Abu Dhabi (+12.4%), Sharjah (+12.0%) in the United Arab Emirates.
