Brussels, 03/02/2012 (Agence Europe) - Although the crisis affected freight airline traffic in 2011, that was not the case for passenger transport, which increased in the skies above Europe. This trend is not expected to continue in 2012 due to the taxes on the sector and fuel prices, the industry warns.
On 2 February, the Airports Council International (ACI Europe) published air traffic figures in Europe for 2011, compared to the previous year. The good news is that the number of passengers travelling by air was up 7.3%. As for freight, this remains below par, with growth of just 1.4%. Freight traffic had a good start for 2011, but the crisis hit the sector in the second part of the year, when it saw negative growth. The director-general of ACI Europe, Olivier Jankovec, sees the 100 million extra passengers who flew in Europe as a demonstration that “air traffic has once again shown its resilience in the face of a difficult economic climate”. However, with Russian and Turkish airports which, amongst others, have seen the sharpest increases in passenger transport, Jankovec stresses that “this performance hides a significant divide between EU and non-EU airports, with the latter growing twice as much”.
2012 is unlikely to see such good results, he warned, because the European crisis will have fallout for growth consequences elsewhere as well, but he particularly referred to “fuel costs and national aviation taxes [which] are going to limit airlines' willingness to add capacity (…). Moreover, the cost of buying emissions permits under the EU ETS has started to be reflected in airlines' fares.” (MD/transl.fl)