The overall passenger traffic at European airports decreased by -4.1% in September 2009 compared with September 2008. The overall freight traffic among European airports decreased -7.8% in September 2009 when compared with the corresponding month in 2008.

The overall figure for movements at European airports decreased -6.9% in September 2009 when compared with September 2008. The accumulated figure for passenger traffic January to September 2009 decreased

by -7.7% compared with the corresponding period 2008. The accumulated figure for freight traffic during January to September decreased by -19.8% and movements decreased by -8.7% during the corresponding period when compared with 2008. Airports welcoming more than 25 million passengers per year (Group 1), airports welcoming between 10 and 25 million passengers (Group 2), airports welcoming between 5 and 10 million passengers (Group 3) and airports welcoming less than 5 million passengers per year (Group 4) reported an average decrease of -3.3%, -6.2%, -4.4% and -4.3% respectively when compared with September 2008.

The same comparison of September 2009 with September 2007 demonstrates an average decrease of -7.5%, -10.3%, -7.3% and -6.1% respectively.

Exceptional examples of airports that experienced an increase in passenger traffic per group, when comparing September 2009 with September 2008, include:

• Group 1 airports – Madrid (+0.1%)
• Group 2 airports – Geneva (+0.4%) and Zurich (+0.1%)
• Group 3 airports – Milan BGY (+15.8%), Marseille (+5.1%) and Edinburgh (+3.8%)
• Group 4 airports – Charleroi (+40.3%), Bologna (+20.1%) and Cagliari (+18.8%).