INTERNATIONAL. London Heathrow, Paris Charles de Gaulle and Hong Kong International were the top three airports ranked by international passenger numbers in 2009. That’s according to Airports Council International’s (ACI) World Airport Traffic Report for the year – the most comprehensive source of traffic data available on the global airports market – just released.
The top ten airports list, measured by international passenger volumes, was completed by Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Dubai, Singapore, Tokyo, Madrid and Bangkok.
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The top-ranked airport by total passengers numbers was Atlanta (mainly domestic US), followed by Heathrow and Beijing. The fastest growing airport (of those handling 5 million passengers a year or more) was Istanbul Sabiha Gökcen International (+52.3%), followed by Rio de Janeiro Santos Dumont (+40.6%).
Remarkably, the next 14 places on the fastest-growing list were filled by Mainland Chinese airports, including Wuhan in third place (with +38.6% year-on-year growth), Sanya in fifth (+32.2%) and Beijing in 16th (+16.9%).
ACI World Director General Angela Gittens said of the report: “This is a unique airport industry reference product that provides an analytical review of traffic data for over 1,350 airports, with illustrative charts and tables. Against the background of the worst global recession since the Second World War, total global passenger traffic at airports declined by -1.8% in 2009 relative to 2008. Cargo tonnage fell by -7.9%, reflecting the direct impact on global markets and productivity during the severe economic downturn. We explain the underlying reasons for the traffic results and show how the trends evolved over the year.”
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Headline results summary
• Worldwide airport passenger numbers dropped by -1.8% in 2009 to 4.796 billion, from a high of 4.882 billion in 2008.
• Middle East (+7.7%), Asia-Pacific (+4.9%) and Latin America-Caribbean (+1.5%) maintained growth.
• Europe and North America registered significant decreases of -5.4% and -5.2% respectively followed by Africa (-0.6%)
• Worldwide domestic traffic was flat (-0.2%) while international traffic dropped -3.9%
• Worldwide aircraft movements decreased by -5.1% to 74.1 million
• Total cargo volumes handled by airports fell by -7.9% to 79.8 million tonnes
• 38% of airports worldwide registered passenger growth, at an average of +10.2%. The gaining airports represent 31.7% of worldwide traffic
• 62% of airports worldwide lost traffic, at an average rate of -6.5% representing 68.3% of global passengers
• Two-thirds of airports with over 5 million passengers (147) lost traffic in 2009 at an average rate of -5.6%
Commenting on the headline results, Gittens said: “In 2009 we witnessed two quite different semesters. During the first half of the year overall traffic continued to spiral downwards due to the impact of deepening economic uncertainty, falling industrial production and falling GDP. Exceptional factors such as the H1N1 influenza virus pandemic had an adverse impact on traffic in May and June, reaching beyond the borders of Latin America to North America, Asia Pacific and Europe.”
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ACI World Director General Angela Gittens: “Despite the tremendous hit the industry took in the first [half], renewed passenger traffic growth balanced out those losses and yielded a decline of -1.8% for the full year” |
She added: “The mid-year months ushered in the glimmer of a rebound, with traffic losses slowing and even stabilizing in a few key developing markets. Domestic traffic in emerging markets began to exhibit new expansion, not just a positive comparison to past poor performance, in part thanks to government stimulus packages that were boosting industrial output and economic stability.
“China, Brazil and India were leaders in this trend. As is often the case, domestic traffic is a precursor of returning international traffic and that is what we saw in the third quarter, with general improvements in almost all markets.
“The end result for the year was that, despite the tremendous hit the industry took in the first term, renewed passenger traffic growth balanced out those losses and yielded a decline of -1.8% for the full year. At the same time the -5.1% drop in aircraft movements indicates the extent to which airlines dropped routes and trimmed excessive capacity in an effort to stabilise their service offerings.”
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Regional differences
Commenting on regional differences, Gittens noted: “Passenger numbers by region show a clear disparity between two groupings: growing traffic in Asia Pacific, Latin America-Caribbean, and Middle East on the one hand, and losses in the African, European and North American markets on the other. While the Middle East continued to gain market share in the international sector throughout the year, Asia Pacific and Latin America/Caribbean were cushioned by robust demand for domestic air travel.”
The traffic drops in the first quarter were the deepest in Europe and North America and their recovery trajectory was shallow showing patchy growth in the fourth quarter. Africa experienced a smaller drop in traffic with stronger recovery signs. Latin America/Caribbean struggled with the fallout of the H1N1 outbreak over the summer which hampered underlying stronger growth, while Asia Pacific emerged definitively from the crisis in the second half of the year.
Additional comments on size categories:
– Two airports, Dubai (+9%) and Bangkok (+5%), joined the over 40 million category in 2009. New Delhi (+8.5%), Melbourne (+1.5%) and Shanghai Hongqiao (+9.5%) were new entrants in the 25-40 million category.
– The 5-15 million category accounts for a quarter (24.9%) of traffic worldwide. Out of the 137 airports in this category, 54 reported growth, which is the best ratio (39.5%) of positive growth airports of all size categories.
– 800 airports have fewer than 1 million passengers, accounting for 59% of the total report sample; 40% (323 airports) reported traffic increases in 2009.
