Many of the fastest growing airports in the world can be found in emerging markets, including in the Asia-Pacific region, according to a new report from Airports Council International (ACI).
ACI’s latest “World Airport Traffic Report” reveals the top airports for passengers, cargo and aircraft movements and highlighted the world’s fastest growing airports for 2018.
“The report found that, in total, the world’s airports accommodated 8.8 billion passengers, 122.7 million metric tonnes of cargo, and 99.9 million aircraft movements,” ACI said in a statement.
The world’s top three airports for passenger traffic volume—Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in first place, Beijing Capital International Airport in second, and Dubai International Airport in third—have held their positions while Los Angeles International Airport (fourth) and Tokyo International Airport (fifth) have swapped places in the top five from last year.
“The World Airport Traffic Report shows that, even as smaller airports around the world continue to make strong gains, the largest hub airports continue to grow,” ACI World director general Angela Gittens said. “There were 16 airports handling more than 40 million passengers per annum in 2008 and there are now 54.”
“Collectively, these airports achieved a year-over-year passenger traffic growth of +5.1% in 2018 which is significant considering a large proportion of these airports are in the mature and capacity constrained markets of North America and Europe,” Gittens added.
Most of the world’s fastest growing airports are located in emerging markets, a significant proportion of them being in the Asia-Pacific region. As many as 12 of the fastest growing top 30 airports in 2018 are located in either China or India.
The top five fastest growing airports in 2018 that handled more than 15 million passengers were Bangalore airport in India in first place, followed by Antalya airport in Turkey, Hyderabad airport in India, Vnukovo airport in Russia, and Jinan airport in China.
“India’s move towards a more liberalized aviation market and the nation’s strengthening economic fundamentals have helped it become one of the fastest-growing markets with its traffic growing rapidly in a relatively short time,” Gittens said.
On total cargo volumes, the top five airports—Hong Kong International Airport, Memphis International Airport, Shanghai Pudong International Airport, Incheon International Airport, and Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport respectively—all held their positions from the previous year.
Big movers were Los Angeles International Airport which jumped three places from 13th to 10th this year and Doha International Airport which advanced five places from 16th last year to 11th.
Rockford, an expansive air cargo hub in the United States, was the fastest growing airport in 2018 for airports that handled more than 250,000 metric tonnes of air cargo. Positioning itself as an e-commerce freight hub for online retail giant Amazon, the airport’s traffic grew 56.6% in 2018.
Photo: Fredlyfish4
