OREANDA-NEWS. January 17, 2012. Both passenger and freight traffic at European airports continued to weaken significantly during November 2011. The overall passenger traffic saw an increase of +2.8% compared with November 2010 while freight traffic among European airports decreased by -5.5% in the same comparison. The overall figure for movements at European airports was -0.2% in November 2011 when compared with November 2010, reported the press-centre of Vilnius International Airport.

Olivier Jankovec, Director General, ACI EUROPE commented “Since last summer, traffic at European airports has increasingly reflected the impact of the sovereign debt crises and the slow-down of the world economy. While full 2011 figures will remain positive for passenger traffic, the entrenched decrease for freight has already wiped out all previous growth for the year. Prospects for 2012 are worrisome, with passenger traffic decreasing in 13 national markets as of November compared to just 4 in September.”

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 increase of +2.6%, +2.9%, +2.1% and +4.1% respectively when compared with November 2010. The same comparison of November 2011 with November 2009 demonstrates an average increase of +9.7%, +10.9%, +8.5% and +11.2% respectively.

Examples of airports that experienced the highest increases in passenger traffic per group, when comparing November 2011 with November 2010, include:

GROUP 1 Airports – Istanbul IST (+18.7%), Barcelona BCN (+6.3%), Munich (+5.2%), Frankfurt (+4.3%) & Paris ORY (+2.9%)

GROUP 2 Airports – Antalya (+21.8%), Moscow SVO (+18.1%), Oslo (+8.4%), Stockholm ARN (+7.9%) & Berlin TXL (+6.3%)

GROUP 3 Airports – Venice (+36.5%), Tenerife (+13.7%), Izmir ADB (+11.8%), Gran Canaria (+9.2%) & Budapest (+8.1%)

GROUP 4 Airports – Bourgas (+228.3%), Liege (+55.9%), Vilnius (+53.2%), Chambery (+41%) & Tallinn (+39.3%)

The 'ACI EUROPE Airport Traffic Report – November 2011' includes 166 airports in total.