São Paulo – Airports Council International (ACI), a worldwide association of airport administration companies, announced this Wednesday (5th) that passenger traffic grew by 6.5% worldwide from January to November last year, compared with the same period of 2009. There was an increase of 7.7% in the number of passengers on international flights, and of 5.5% in domestic routes.
In November alone, there was growth of 6.9% overall, 8.1% in international traffic, and 6% in domestic traffic. According to a statement issued by the ACI, its director general, Angela Gittens, claimed that judging by the figures, the year of 2010 is going to set a new record in global passenger traffic, with growth of 7% over 2009.
Such growth, however, was unevenly spread throughout the different regions of the world. According to the executive, whereas the Middle East, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific performed much better than they had before the international financial crisis, Europe and North America have not yet matched their pre-crisis levels.
According to her, Europe even surpassed North America as the region with the highest traffic. Angela added, however, that only once the consolidated data for the year is available will it be possible to know whether that trend was sustained after the aerospace chaos caused by winter in the Northern Hemisphere last December.
In terms of air cargo transportation, according to the ACI, there was growth of 18.2% from January to November 2010 compared with the same period of the previous year, which made up for the 8% decline seen in 2009.
The top contributors to increased passenger traffic were Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Russia, India and South Korea. In domestic flights, the highlights were Brazil, China, India, Turkey and the United States. Internationally, the traffic was driven by the airports of Muscat, in Oman, Moscow, Cairo, Barcelona, Incheon, in South Korea, and Dubai.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
