Passenger traffic reported strong growth in July; air freight volumes remained sluggish

While Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions led global growth in passenger traffic at 15.3% and 11.6% respectively year-over-year, the mature markets of Europe and North America demonstrated lower growth of 3.9% and 2.3%. The recessionary Africa and Latin America-Caribbean regions reported -0.4% and +0.7% respectively in total passenger traffic during the month of July.

With regard to international passenger traffic, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific reported comparable growth rates of 15.7% and 14.6% respectively in July, while the year-to-date figures were somewhat lower at 10.3% and 11.1% respectively.

The major commercial airports of the United States, China and Japan reported 1.9%, 7.2% and 4% growth in total passenger traffic volumes. Korea and India remained the growth leaders of the Asia-Pacific region with impressive double-digit growth rates of 37.4% and 23% at their major commercial airports. Spain kept momentum with 11.1% growth in passenger volumes during the month of July and 11.5% on a year-to-date basis.

In terms of absolute growth during the month of July, several airports are worth mentioning: Incheon (ICN, +44.4% or +1.63 million passengers), Dubai (DXB, +14% or +0.93 million passengers), Delhi (DEL, +23.3% or +0.89 million passengers), Doha (DOH, +27.5% or +0.75 million passengers and Jeju (CJU, +35.2% or +0.72 million passengers). The high growth rates at both Korean airports were due to the recovery of the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak in 2015.

The 3.9% growth in international freight during the month of July inspired some optimism, even though the year-to-date figure for both international and total freight was below 1%. International freight in Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America—the three largest international air freight markets—grew 5.3%, 1% and 6.7% respectively. Domestic air freight traffic was much weaker during the same period: major freight hubs in North America reported a 5% decline, while in Asia-Pacific, domestic air freight grew only by 0.8%.

The largest air freight hubs of the United States, China and Japan reported -0.2%, +4.5% and +1.8% respectively. The key air freight hubs of Korea posted impressive growth of 8% during the month of July. In terms of absolute growth during the month of July, the top position was occupied by the Middle East air freight hub of Doha (DOH, +20% or +24,173 tonnes), while the following six positions belong to air freight hubs in Asia-Pacific, namely Hong Kong (HKG, +4.7% or +17,134 tonnes), Incheon (ICN, +7.9% or + 16,141 tonnes), Singapore (SIN, +9.4% or +13,900) and Shanghai-Pudong (PVG, +4.6% or +12,203 tonnes). On a year-to-date basis, Doha (DOH), Guangzhou (CAN) and Singapore (SIN) were the leaders in absolute growth (+162,491, +60,182 and +51,800 tonnes respectively).