INTERNATIONAL. International passenger traffic at the world’s airports climbed by +5.2% year-on-year in 2013, ACI has reported. Total traffic was up by +3.9% and domestic traffic by +2.7%.
Global passenger traffic ended the year strongly with year-on-year growth of over +6% for December. This represents the highest monthly growth over the last 12-month period. Both international and domestic traffic performed above the annualised average achieving growth rates of +6.6% and +6.2% respectively.
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Regional passenger markets
Africa: African passenger traffic continues to show signs of weakness, ACI noted. A slight decline of -0.6% was reported for Africa’s major airports in 2013. Egyptian airports continue to experience the effects of political and social unrest as several of the country’s major airports experienced double digit declines. Cairo, North Africa’s busiest airport and gateway to popular tourist destinations, experienced a fall of -11.4% in passenger numbers for December.
Other Northern African airports such as Algiers and Casablanca experienced strong growth of +8.4% and +8.1% respectively for the month. Johannesburg, Africa’s busiest airport, ended the year with +3.6% gains in December although its full-year growth was +0.5%.
Asia Pacific: Asia Pacific airports reported overall growth of +6.4% in passenger traffic for December, with annualised growth in passenger traffic for 2013 over +7%. Many of the region’s airports are experiencing slowing growth as a result of a cyclical slowdown in markets such as China. Beijing grew by +2.2% in 2013, which is much lower than the yearly double digit growth rates that it posted before 2011, ACI noted. While domestic traffic is significant in markets such as Japan and China, international passenger traffic was a driving force behind the yearly gains for the Asia Pacific region, ACI noted. International traffic grew by over +8% in 2013 for the region.
Europe: Overall traffic in 2013 increased modestly by +2.6%. Despite the economic uncertainties that persisted in the euro area throughout 2013, the region ended the year on a positive note with passenger traffic rising by +5.3% in December.
ACI said: “Except for the peripheral countries of the euro area, most of the major airports recovered from the weak traffic figures that persisted throughout the year. Of the top ten airports in Europe, only Madrid, Spain’s busiest airport, and Rome saw traffic drop, by -12.1% and -2.2% respectively in 2013. Turkish and Russian airports posted robust growth figures for 2013. Istanbul Atatürk grew by +13.6% and the Moscow airports (Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo) posted growth rates of +11.7% and +9.2% respectively in the year.
Latin America-Caribbean: The region observed a growth of +4.8% in passenger traffic in 2013. With gains of over +10% for the region in December, the increases in traffic in Latin America were largely attributed to Brazil’s burgeoning domestic market. In particular, the three major Brazilian airports of Sao Paulo and Brasilia all experienced double digit gains of +19.3%, +12.8% and +35.3% respectively in December.
Middle East: The Middle East continues to achieve the highest growth among all regions, at over +10% for the month of December and for the year as a whole. Double digit growth rates continue to persist for airports across the region. Dubai and Abu Dhabi grew by +15.2% and +12.4% respectively. Preliminary traffic rankings for 2013 reveal that Dubai has moved up to the seventh busiest airport in the world (combining international and domestic traffic).
North America:While growth in North America remains at relatively modest levels, December was “a banner month” for passenger traffic with growth of +6.6%. This represents an above average month for North America since year-over-year growth for 2013 was +1.3%. While many North American airports ended the year strong with robust growth rates in passenger traffic, Atlanta, the world’s busiest airport contracted by -1.1% in 2013. Although the airport experienced an increase of +4.1% in international passenger traffic, its huge domestic market declined -1.7%.
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ACI World’s Economics Director Rafael Echevarne commented: “As we end the year with a strong December, it is important to highlight the resilience of global passenger traffic in 2013. While there were fears that growth would become more subdued, preliminary figures still point to year-over-year growth in passenger traffic that is in the vicinity of +3.5% to +4.0%, which is formidable considering the economic environment.
“Nonetheless, as international traffic remained relatively strong, domestic travel was curtailed mainly because of economic challenges in European and North American markets. Both domestic freight and domestic passenger traffic were sluggish in these markets.
“The weak domestic market is reflective of the ongoing downside risks in the euro area and United States. Partly fuelled by emerging markets, world output (GDP) grew by +3% in 2013. Based on the January update of the IMF World Economic Outlook, advanced economies grew by +1.3% in 2013 with the United States and euro area posting growth of +1.9% and -+0.4% respectively. Nevertheless, recovery and higher GDP growth is anticipated in both regions and this will have a positive impact on air transport demand going forward into 2014. ”
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