Airport passenger traffic continues growth

Following the impressive results in January 2012, passenger traffic in the Asia Pacific region continued to show a strong and steady growth in February 2012. According to the latest Airports Council International (ACI) Passenger and Freight Flash Reports, airports in the Asia Pacific area recorded a 7.7% increase in passenger traffic in February 2012 comparing to February last year while the Middle East area showed a year-on-year increase of 10.9%. Jakarta (CGK) and Abu Dhabi (ABU) are the two airports in the region with the strongest passenger traffic growth, achieving a remarkable result of year-on-year increases of 27.3% and 24.5% respectively in terms of passenger number. Beijing (PEK) continued to record the highest passenger throughput in this region, with over 5.9 million passengers. The other four airports closely following are Tokyo Haneda (HND), with 5.1 million passengers, Bangkok (BKK), Jakarta (CGK) and Dubai (DXB), all recorded over 4.2 million passengers in February 2012. Year-to-date results on passenger traffic for Asia Pacific area was +8.4% and +10.4% for the Middle East area. As for air freight traffic, Asia Pacific airports have recorded a significant year-on-year increase of 13.8% in February 2012 but this is somewhat distorted by the fact that the Chinese New Year holidays, which usually cause a drop in freight traffic, was in January this year, but February last year. The year-to-date decrease of 1% depicted a more realistic picture on the air freight traffic in the Asia Pacific area. In the Middle East area, air freight traffic showed an increase of 5.3% in February 2012 compared to February 2011, or a year-to-date increase of 3.3%. Same as last month, Hong Kong (HKG), Shanghai Pudong (PVG), Seoul Incheon (ICN) remained the top 3 airports in the region with the highest air freight throughput. Tokyo Narita (NRT) and Dubai (DXB) took the 4th and 5th places. Commenting on the February 2012 traffic results, ACI Asia Pacific Regional Director Mrs. Patti Chau said, “When looking at the year-on-year percentages for this month, we need to note that we are comparing a monthly record of 29 days versus 28 days as in February last year. Hence, the results, although still showed a positive trend, may not be as rosy as they looked.”