ACI World Director General Angela Gittens comments, “With overall passenger numbers hovering at 4.8 billion in both 2007 and 2008, we are a long way from the dynamic 6.8 percent growth witnessed in 2007. The relentless climb of oil prices which spiked in July and the turbulent financial and economic climate, which emerged in the second half of 2008, countered positive results achieved in first two quarters of the year. These two key factors sparked a negative trend that has continued into 2009.” 

Cargo results
Global industrial production began to contract in July 2008 followed by a sharp drop in global trade volumes in the last quarter leading to a collapse in global air freight peaking in December 2008. As a result cargo volumes worldwide fell by 3.7 percent in 2008. Domestic freight dropped more sharply by 5.4 percent whereas international freight suffered from a milder 2.4 percent contraction.    

Looking at some key markets, for the year, the Asia Pacific region lost 25% of its previous year volume in December. The U.S. remained by far the largest air cargo market in the world accounting for a third of the global volume even though it shrank by 9.1 percent both in domestic and international freight.  China (including Hong Kong) ranked second accounting for 13 percent of global air shipments.  Total freight in China grew by 1.8 percent, with almost equal growth levels in the domestic and international markets.

Gittens comments, “The downward spiral for cargo year-end has yet to be reversed, with cargo results tied down by the slow resurgence of global trade.  Traffic results for the first half of 2009 show that freight remains strongly depressed relative to the first quarter of 2008, with only timid indications of market stabilization beginning to emerge.”

Aircraft movements
Aircraft movements worldwide reached 77 million, which given the larger sample this year actually represents a decline of 2.1 percent compared to 2007. This figure includes cargo, military, general aviation, combi flights and passenger aircraft movements. Passenger/combi aircraft movements – a category of particular interest for commercial purposes – decreased by 0.5 percent to 55.8 million.  That translates into 87.3 passengers per movement, which is actually an improvement of 0.7 percent over 2007.

The largest decrease of passenger/ combi aircraft movements was registered in the U.S., down by 4.2 percent. General Aviation and military flights in the U.S. were down by 10.7 percent.

Regional analysis
The impact of crude oil prices on the industry and of the global financial economic recession on production and trade varied by geographical region.  North America, particularly susceptible to high oil prices as oil is trading in US Dollars, suffered traffic declines as early as the close of the first quarter.  Other regions registered declines later in the year – Asia Pacific starting in July, while Europe and Latin America followed in September. Africa had only two negative months during the year (September and December), whereas the Middle East sustained its growth trajectory during the 12 months. 

Due to its early contraction in 2008, North America was the only region with negative overall result in 2008 (-3.1 percent). The Middle East was the region registering the largest growth at 5.8 percent followed by Africa at 4.8 percent.

The 5 fastest growing passenger airports in 2008 were Abu Dhabi (UAE), Istanbul (Turkey), Sharjah (UAE), Sharm El Sheikh (Egypt) and Bahrain (Bahrain).  The top 25 includes airports from Brazil, China, Egypt, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, Russian Federation, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, Vietnam – a mixed list from large and small airports, developed and developing nations.  See the table at the end of the release.

Andreas Schimm, ACI World’s Director of Economics Director and editor of the report, says, “Historically, air traffic tends to outperform GDP, but that was not the case in 2008.  This year there is a significant gap, with worldwide growth traffic at 0.1 percent, whereas worldwide GDP grew by 3.1 percent, thanks to a strong 6 percent rise in GDP in emerging/developing economies.  With advanced economies generating about 75% of global traffic and sub-GDP traffic growth in some key emerging markets, the disparity was accentuated. In China, GDP rose by 9 percent, yet traffic was only up 3.8 percent; Brazil’s GDP rose by 5.1 percent with traffic up by only 0.9 percent; India’s GDP was up by 7.3 percent, with traffic down by 2.3 percent.”

Notes to editors:
•  For questions please contact ACI World Director Communications Nancy Gautier at ngautier@aci.aero  
•  ACI, the only worldwide association of airports, is a non-profit organisation whose prime purpose is to represent the interests of airports and to promote professional excellence in airport management and operations. ACI has 597 members who operate 1679 airports in 177 countries and territories.
•  The full 500-page report includes data for each participating airport. It is available in PDF or Excel format, and can be purchased on-line from ACI World website at www.aci.aero in the publication section. 
•  GDP values are from the IMF (International Monetary Fund)
•  The WATR 2008 (over 600 pages) includes: summary analysis, country by country traffic data, market share for top 50, world rankings in five categories, data from each participating airport, and trend graphs. 
•  2008 headline figures
- Total worldwide passenger growth of +0.1%
- Fastest growing region was the Middle East at 5.8% followed by Africa (+4.9%) and Latin America Caribbean (+2.1%)
- Asia Pacific and Europe grew by 1.2%
- North America only region with decrease in traffic (-3.1%)
- Total aircraft movements handled by airports was 77 billion, a decrease of 2.1%
- Total cargo handled decreased by 3.7% to 86 million tonnes
- 51% of airports worldwide registered positive passenger growth in 2008, together these airports represent 49% of total passenger traffic
- 520 airports with more than 5 million passengers experienced a decrease in passengers compared to only 21 airports in 2007