Sharp 11% passenger growth in April, one year after ash cloud slump

Worldwide passenger traffic grew markedly in April propelled by a vigorous increase in international traffic in Europe. The 11 percent surge comes one year after the Icelandic ash cloud paralyzed wide parts of European aviation, shutting down air space and airports over several days.
ACI World Director Economics Andreas Schimm says, ?This increase is a very positive result, particularly in light of the current situation in Japan as well as in North Africa, and an erratic economic recovery. Year-to-date average global growth at 5.9 percent certainly provides a solid basis as well as an upbeat outlook for the rest of the year.?
While international traffic dropped by 5 percent in April 2010, it jumped by almost 18 percent in April 2011, bringing year to date growth of 8 percent. Easter holiday travel was a second factor contributing to that strong traffic increase, with holiday movements falling in the middle of April 2011, whereas in 2010 Easter travel was split between March and April.
Schimm adds, ?This month?s spike represents more than just compensation for last year?s losses. When we compare back to April 2009, we still see that international traffic volumes rose by a strong 12 percent, an indicator of growth over and beyond the compensation for disruptive factors.?
Regional results (see Tables 2 and 3 in full release)
European airports spearheaded monthly growth at an extraordinary 27 percent. Growth of more than 20 percent was reported by 61 out of 78 airports in the sample led by Helsinki (+58%). Major European hubs including Amsterdam (+37%), Frankfurt (+31%), London Heathrow (+31%) and Paris (+29%) also registered hefty increases. At other end of the spectrum, airports in Asia Pacific and Africa suffered losses that held down overall results, with continuing instability in North Africa and the dramatic drops in Japanese traffic. Airports in Egypt, Japan, Tunisia and Bahrain saw their traffic plunge between 20 and 60 percent (Tokyo Narita -19.6%, Cairo -23.4%).
In North America, and despite 7.6 percent increase in international traffic, growth remains marginal (+2.1%), muted by almost stagnating domestic traffic. Latin America/ Caribbean (+15.2%) traffic soared with both domestic and international traffic growing double-digits. Brazil is the key market accounting for almost all of the growth alone helped by solid results in Argentina, Peru and Mexico. The Middle East reported its first double digit monthly growth rate since November 2010, also in part due to the compensatory indirect ash cloud effect at airports such as Dubai (+13%) and Abu Dhabi (+15%).
A similar effect was only partially observed in air freight. While European air freight rebounded by 15.8 percent, the other two major markets Asia Pacific (-1%) and North America (-2.9%) reported negative growth. These results, however, still should be seen in the context of tremendous growth rates of over 30 percent in the corresponding period 2010. Similar to passenger traffic, Latin America Caribbean generated genuine growth of 11.9 percent with better increases in the dominant international freight sector.
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