OREANDA-NEWS. October 18, 2011. The press release of the Airports Council International Europe (ACI Europe) announces that Vilnius International Airport (VIA) in August took the fifth place among European airports according to the increase in passenger traffic. VIA is in the fourth position in the group of airports welcoming less than five million passengers per year, reported the press-centre of VIA.

Having evaluated the activity of European airports, ACI Europe announced the list of the airports that had experienced the highest increase in passenger traffic in August. Vilnius Airport left behind 161 out of 166 airports that participated in the research of ACI Europe. In comparison with August 2010, Macedonia Ohrid Airport reached 93.5 per cent increase in passenger traffic, Venice Airport – 43.1 per cent, Tallinn Airport – 39.5 per cent, Skeleftea Airport in Sweden – 36.2 per cent, and Vilnius Airport – 26.3 per cent. The overall traffic increase rate in European airports in August was approximately 4.5 per cent compared with the same period in 2010.

Barcelona Airport had 19.1 per cent increase in passenger traffic and showed the best August results in the group of the largest airports welcoming more than 25 million passengers per year. Moscow Domodedovo Airport, which had traffic increase of 20.6 per cent, was the leader in the group of airports welcoming less than 25 million passengers, and Venice Airport reached the best results in the group of airports welcoming less than 10 million passengers per year.  Macedonia Ohrid Airport was the best in the group of airports welcoming less than 5 million passengers per year.

“We are happy to see that even two airports in the Baltic States operated especially productively because this proves the general recovery of the Baltic Region’s market. Successful results of Vilnius Airport make us believe that this year more passengers will be serviced in the Lithuanian airports compared with the record year of 2008”, Eligijus Masiulis, the Minister of Transport, commented the results reported by ACI.

Vilnius Airport has also received good evaluations in the portal of aviation market analysis: “The portal anna.aero points out four largest airports in the Baltic States – Riga, Tallinn, Vilnius and Kaunas, because the overall passenger traffic in August increased by more than 16 per cent. And this number really exceeds the average in Europe”, Tomas Vaisvila, the general manager of VIA, says.  He emphasises that Vilnius Airport intends to retain 26 per cent average increase rate, reached during the summer season, for the rest of the year. This has been already proved by September results: 179.5 thousand passengers were serviced, i.e. by 38.4 per cent more compared to the same period in 2010.

ACI Europe unites 400 airports from 46 different European countries. The members of this council take 90 per cent of the European airport market. Vilnius International Airport has been a member of ACI Europe since 1992. VIA specialists actively participate in the activity of the ACI Aviation Security Committee, Aerodrome Supervision Committee and other committees.