The latest air traffic statistics from European airport trade body, ACI Europe reveal that the overall passenger traffic at European airports decreased by -2.1% in October 2009 compared with
October 2008, while the overall freight traffic among European airports decreased -3.1% in October 2009 when compared with October 2008.

Olivier Jankovec, Director General ACI Europe said “These October figures confirm a trend towards a slow and gradual air traffic recovery, which started over the summer and which has mainly been driven by low cost airlines. The pace of recovery is more pronounced for freight, as the significant gap between freight traffic and passenger traffic that characterised this downturn has now narrowed considerably. This reflects the fact that European economies are no longer in recession and that business confidence is improving.”

He added “However, this is our 14th month of traffic decline and we are not out of the woods yet. The closure of Coventry airport in the UK just yesterday is a stark reminder that airports continue to be severely affected by this crisis. Close to 60% of European airports continue to lose traffic and for many, the coming months will remain very challenging.”

The accumulated figure for passenger traffic January to October 2009 decreased by -7.2% compared with the corresponding period 2008. The accumulated figure for freight traffic during January to October decreased by -18.1% and movements decreased by -8.6% 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 -1.4%, -3.6%, -2.4% and -2.7% respectively when compared with October 2008. The same comparison of October 2009 with October 2007 demonstrates an average decrease of -6.0%, -7.9%, -5.4%
and -6.0% respectively.

Examples of airports that actually experienced an increase in passenger traffic per group, when comparing October 2009 with October 2008, include:

• Group 1 airports – Istanbul (+8.4%) Madrid (+3.4%),London LGW (+1.8%) and London LHR (+1.1%)
• Group 2 airports – Moscow DME (+8.1%), Geneva (+5.4%), Dusseldorf (+4.0%) and Milan MXP (+3.8%)
• Group 3 airports – Milan BGY (+21.6%), Marseille (+6.8%), St. Petersburg (+6.3%) and Venice (+4.5%)
• Group 4 airports – Charleroi (+35.8%), Cagliari (+22.1%), Brindisi (+18.4%) and Riga (+11.8%).