Airports everywhere suffered from last year's crisis, although there remain some occasional bright spots amid the gloom
After the events of last year it comes as little surprise to find the 2001 ranking of the world's leading passenger airports awash with negative results. Of the top 100 airports, more than 70 show a fall in traffic for the year, although given the environment perhaps more impressive is that nearly a third actually managed to grow, led by the usual Asia-Pacific star.
Preliminary figures from the Airports Council International (ACI) suggest that passenger numbers ended last year down by 2.6%. That is in stark contrast to growth rates that had clipped along at around 5-6% for the previous couple of years. Yet traffic was already showing clear signs of stagnation even before the events of 11 September sent the figures into freefall. Growth had slowed to 3.4% in the first quarter of 2001 and was down to 1.8% by mid-year as the US economic slowdown took its toll. The September quarter registered an overall drop of 3% followed by a hefty 13% collapse in the last three months of the year as carriers stripped away capacity.
Recovery this year has been patchy. ACI reports that there are slight signs of recovery in January and February, but warns that "no rapid return to normal levels" is expected soon. Early returns from Europe's rapid reporting system suggest that even by March, passenger numbers at the major hubs were still down 3.7% on the previous year.
North America clearly felt the brunt of last year's crisis, with US airports making a clean sweep of the top 10 highest losses. Cincinnati lost nearly a quarter of its traffic, although that came courtesy of the strike at Delta's regional subsidiary Comair which dominates the hub. Washington National was high on the list of losses after being closed for nearly a month following the US attacks, and was still down by more than a third at the turn of the year. San Francisco, with its new international terminal not long open, also plummeted in the rankings. It suffered as dominant carrier United Airlines took aggressive action on capacity and regrouped at its Chicago hub. San Francisco was still down by around 20% in January as were New York's JFK and Newark.
Yet a handful of US hubs did emerge from 2001 showing annual growth. Oakland gained as Southwest Airlines shifted services out of San Francisco, while low-cost services also gave a lift to Fort Lauderdale and Baltimore Washington.
European decline
Europe was not far behind North America with a 6% decline in passenger traffic for the year. Milan Malpensa fell hardest, partly reflecting the failure of Italian flag carrier Alitalia to develop the airport as its main hub. Ironically, Milan Linate, the airport Malpensa was meant to replace, saw traffic increase by nearly 20%. The collapse of Sabena left Brussels National down heavily and the OAG schedule data for May shows that the field is now wide open at the hub, with Sabena's successor SN Brussels Airways holding only 27% of the slots. Zurich too had to face the loss of Swissair, although the reborn Swiss has taken on a much broader range of services from its predecessor than fledgling SN Brussels.
Low-cost bases again did well in the ranking. London Stansted, home to Ryanair, Go and Buzz, once more took the honours for the highest growth among the top 100 airports for the second year running.
Among the major European hubs, London Heathrow fell by 6%, reflecting the exposure to the transatlantic market and capacity reductions by British Airways. By comparison nearest competitors in Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam slipped by only a point or two. But the most upbeat performances came from Madrid Barajas, which ended the year showing 3% and Munich, up 2.3% despite missing its own aggressive growth targets.
Preliminary figures for the first quarter appear to continue last year's trend. Brussels is down by over 39%, while Zurich and Malpensa have each slipped by around 18%. Heathrow is virtually back to parity.
The Asian-Pacific region fared best over 2001 with an average rise of 3.4%. The major Chinese airports led with growth rates in the 10-25% range. Tokyo's Haneda also grew as new runway capacity was snapped up at the congested domestic hub. However, new capacity is coming on stream across Asia (see page 58) and filling it will remains a short-term challenge for 2002.
Source: Airline Business
