July Global Passenger Market Declines

Manila Bulletin
September 13, 2012
By Edu Lopez

MANILA, Philippines — With many major international airports in Europe and North America reporting lackluster figures in passenger traffic in July, overall growth in global passenger markets slowed to 2%.

Airport Council International (ACI) noted that counterbalancing the slowdown in these markets is the continued strong demand in emerging markets.

ACI said the the major airports of Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Latin America-Caribbean posted robust year-over-year gains. Beijing (PEK), Dubai (DXB) and São Paulo (GRU) achieved growth of +6.1%, +6.0% and +9.0% respectively.

Freight markets suffered a decline of -2% in traffic volumes in July, while many Asian airports experienced a buoyant rise in year-over-year passenger traffic, the opposite is occurring in the freight market.

Hong Kong (HKG) and Shanghai (PVG) saw declines of -1.8% and -7.1% respectively. All but Africa and the Middle East, observed declines in freight traffic. Johannesburg (JNB) and Abu Dhabi (AUH) had double-digit gains of +13.0% and +27.8%.

ACI World’s Economics Director Rafael Echevarne said: “Regional trends in air transport markets continue to be mixed reflecting the combination of resilient demand from emerging markets and the slowdown of European and American economies."

"The net result is a modest overall growth rate in passenger traffic for the month of July. Air freight, on the other hand, is clearly in a contraction phase as business confidence wanes in parallel," Echevarne added.