Brussels, 12/06/2009 (Agence Europe) - Despite a general improvement, largely attributed to the Easter period, amongst other factors, aviation passenger traffic continued to drop over the month of April, recording a fall of -4.8% compared to the previous year, according to the figures of ACI Europe (Airports Council International) published on Wednesday 10 June. In total, the number of passengers transported between January and April 2009 was down 10.4% compared to the same period in 2008. The situation was no better for the air transport of goods, which ACI Europe claims as proof that the sector is far from out of the crisis. In April 2009, freight transport between European airports saw a drop of 25.4% compared to April 2008. The cumulative result in the first quarter of 2009 is 24.4% lower than that of the previous year. Of the largest European airports belonging to group 1 (those which deal with more than 25 million passengers per year), passenger transport fell by an average of 3.2% compared to April 2008. This drop was 5.7% for the airports of group 2 (between 10 and 25 million passengers a year) and group 4 (fewer than 5 million passengers a year) and stood at 5.3% for group 3 airports (between 5 and 10 million passengers). Some airports nonetheless recorded increases in passenger traffic, the most significant of which were seen in the smallest airports (group 4): Riga (+ 19.6%), Bari (+ 19.5%) and Bologna (+ 17.4%). In airports of group 3, passenger traffic was up at Berlin Schönefeld (+5.5%), Marseille (+9.8%) and Milan Bergamo (+ 2.4%). Increases were also recorded at Lisbon airport (+10.3%), Milan Malpensa (+9.8%) and Geneva (5%) (group 2) and at London Heathrow (+2.6%). (A.By.)