Worldwide airport cargo increased 4% in 2016 to 110 million metric tonnes, with Asia-Pacific airports handling the biggest volume, according to the latest edition of the World Airport Traffic Report, the flagship publication of Airports Council InternationaI (ACI).
Airports in Asia-Pacific processed 43.4 million metric tonnes of cargo last year, up 5.4% over 2015. The region is followed by North America with 30.8 million metric tonnes, up 2.4% over 2015; Europe (20.1 million metric tonnes, up 5%); Middle East (8.8 million metric tonnes, up 2.7%); Latin America-Caribbean (5.1 million metric tonnes, up 0.9%); and Africa (2.1 million metric tonnes, up 1.3%).
Of the over 2,400 airports in 175 countries worldwide covered in the report, Hong Kong and Memphis take the first and second ranks, respectively, for the busiest air cargo airports with 4.6 million and 4.3 million metric tonnes in 2016.
Hong Kong is also the busiest in international freight traffic terms, registering 4.52 million metric tonnes in 2016, up 3.2% over 2015. Incheon follows with 2.60 million metric tonnes, up 4.5%; and Dubai, 2.59 million metric tonnes, up 3.4%.
As for the world’s fastest growing airports handling over 250,000 metric tonnes of air cargo during 2016, Moscow heads the list, followed by Doha and Hanoi.
Passenger traffic expansion
At the same time, the ACI report reveals that the world’s mega hubs achieved passenger traffic growth of 5.5% year-over-year in 2016.
There were 46 airports with over 40 million passengers per annum (mppa) in 2016 as compared to 18 airports in 2006. After years of consolidation and capacity discipline by many airlines, the mature markets such as Europe and North America experienced an important resurgence in air transport demand, particularly at many of its large hubs.
In 2016, nine airports graduated to the 40 mppa category, namely, Barcelona, Taipei, Kunming, Sydney, Shenzhen, Orlando, Mexico, Newark, and Shanghai.
On the other hand, a relatively higher proportion of smaller airports with fewer than 1 million passengers in 2006 experienced a decline in passenger traffic by 2016 compared with other size categories. This proportion tends to decrease inversely as airports increase in size. By 2016, 27.4% of airports that had fewer than 1 mppa in 2006 experienced a loss in traffic over that period.
“Despite the net gains achieved in both traffic volumes and operational efficiency, especially at hubs in major city markets across the globe, the downside of airline capacity shifts is that a proportion of smaller regional airports have either stagnated or experienced a reduction in nonstop destinations between cities,” said Angela Gittens, director general, ACI World.
Worldwide airport passenger numbers increased 6.5% in 2016 to almost 7.7 billion, registering increases in all regions except Africa, which had a slight decrease.
The highest number of passengers traveled through airports in the Asia-Pacific region, with 2.73 billion, up 10.6% over 2015. It is followed by Europe (2.04 billion, up 5.2%); North America (1.79 billion, up 3.8%); Latin America-Caribbean (588 million, up 1.2%); Middle East (369 million, up 9.4%); and Africa (182 million, down 0.4%).
Atlanta remains the busiest airport on the globe in 2016, trailed by Beijing and Dubai.
In international passenger traffic,Dubai is the busiest, with London-Heathrow and Hong Kong behind it.
The world’s fastest growing airports with over 15 million passengers are Bangalore, Ho Chi Minh, and New Delhi.
Shanghai remains one of the fastest growing airports among the world’s top 20 airports for passenger traffic, moving from 13th to 9th place and growing 9.8%. Los Angeles also had a high growth rate of 8%, moving from 7th to 4th rank in terms of total passenger traffic in 2016.
Photo: Baycrest
