ACI Europe reports that non-EU airport traffic grew 7.8% and EU traffic fell -1.3% in October, taking account of disruption from US Hurricane Sandy.

Unsurprisingly, overall freight traffic among European airports also continued to decline, recording -2.2% in October, while aircraft movements at European airports also decreased by -1.5%.

Olivier Jankovec, Director General ACI Europe said: “With passenger and freight traffic in the EU market recording firmly negative results, there is no escaping the deepening impact of the European sovereign debt crisis on the real economy. For the first time since October 2009, more than half of Europe’s airports are experiencing declines in passenger traffic.”

The contrasting performance of national markets continues to evolve with traffic in Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Greece, Latvia, Spain, Hungary and Italy firmly in recession, while traffic in the UK, France, Malta and Belgium is essentially flat.

ACI adds that traffic in Ireland and Portugal is showing encouraging signs of recovery, while countries like Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden are recording unimpressive growth. Meanwhile, non-EU markets like Iceland, Russia, Turkey and Moldova continue to register dynamic double-digit growth.

Airports welcoming more than 25m passengers per year (Group 1), airports with between 10-25m (Group 2), those with between 5-10m (Group 3) and airports with less than 5m (Group 4) reported average increase of +0.9%, +1.5%, -0.3% and -1.9% respectively when compared with October 2011.

PICTURE IS NOT ALL GLOOMY…
Airports that experienced the highest increase in passenger traffic per group, when comparing October 2012 with October 2011, included:

Group 1 airports: Istanbul (+19.1%); Moscow Domodedovo (+9.4%); London Gatwick (+2.2%); Antalya (+1.9%); and Munich (+1.8%).

Group 2: Moscow Sheremetyevo/shown above (+15.6%); Istanbul (+14.9%); Dublin (+10.0%); Berlin Tegel (+7.8%); and Nice (+5.4%).

Group 3: Bucharest (+46.4%); St Petersburg (+15.1%); Ankara (+9.8%); Toulouse (+9.5%); and Charleroi (+8.6%).

Group 4: Arad (+2,317.3%); Varna (+60.8%); Chita (+46.9%); Vatry (+35.1%); and Sandefjord (+34.4%).

ACI Europe adds that its Airport Traffic Report – October 2012 includes 183 airports, which represent over 88% of all European passenger traffic.