The latest data released this week from airports group ACI has shown a modest growth in international traffic during February, although the recent political unrest in North Africa has seriously impacted statistics from the region with numbers down by around a fifth. Total passengers were up by almost 4 per cent across the globe with the international market up by 4.5 per cent and domestic travel by 3.4 per cent. Freight volumes stagnated for the month reflecting a decrease of 3.3 per cent in domestic freight traffic.
But, it is the North African data that catches the eye. Airports in the region were heavily hit by political unrest in Egypt and Tunisia, resulting in a 21 per cent decline across the continent, with drastic reductions seen for Cairo (-54 per cent), Sharm El Sheikh (-71 per cent), Tunis (-31 per cent). Bahrain also recorded implications of the social unrest with a 15 per cent passenger decline. One third of airports in the sample reported negative growth for February, a comparatively high proportion mainly tied to decreases seen at North African airports that would normally have risen during this tourism period.
However, on the flip side, a reduction in traffic to popular leisure resorts in Egypt and Tunisia has brought apparent benefits for the Mediterranean, with alternative destinations particularly in Spain and Turkey recording sharp growth. This was most obvious at Fuerteventura (+34 per cent), Seville (+20 per cent), Tenerife (+13 per cent), Lanzarote and Gran Canaria (+11 per cent) and Antalya (+20 per cent).
"The impact of the social and political crisis in North Africa on overall global traffic is limited, yet for the individual airports that were accustomed to rapid growth, it represents a very severe situation as both aeronautical and non-aeronautical revenues plunge,” said Andreas Schimm, Director Economics, ACI. "While the situation in North Africa remains fragile with the focus shifting to Libya, the effects of the natural and nuclear disaster in Japan that occurred in March will have a far bigger impact on March results both in the Asia-Pacific region as well as depressing global passenger numbers.”
Cargo concerns
The freight situation is more sobering as there was no growth in February globally. The stagnation comes relative to a 22 per cent increase in February 2010 as the market began to rebound. The Asia Pacific region and the Middle East recorded declines of 3.4 and 9.3 per cent respectively. While the drop in Asia Pacific was mostly caused by domestic freight decreases, the Middle East freight market is solely international.
"It would be misleading to interpret these figures as a precursor to a cooling world economy,” said Andreas Schimm. “Growth rates were exceptionally high during the first half of the 2010 reference period, and the situation is already positive if the volumes reached then can be upheld."
A positive viewpoint
Overall, February saw further consolidation of growth. In light of 6.8 per cent growth during the reference period one year ago, the 3.9 percent global growth this February, despite the Africa decrease, remains positive. Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America-Caribbean and the Middle East show homogeneous growth rates between 5 and 6 per cent whereas North America's passenger figures expanded by 2.8 percent. International traffic grew faster than domestic in North America (+3.4 per cent), Europe (+6.1 per cent) and Asia Pacific (+7.7 per cent), while the rolling 12 month growth rate remains high at 6.4 per cent just slightly below the peak of 6.9 per cent reached last month.
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NOTE: Schedule data extracted from Flightbase for week commencing April 14, 2011; Traffic data extracted from IATA BSP system for the year ending January 2011.
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