TRAFFIC BOUNCES BACK AT CHINA’S AIRPORTS

Passenger numbers in China bounced back in May with Shanghai Pudong (+6.7%), Chengdu Shuangliu (+6.7%) and Shenzhen Bao’an (+6%) airports enjoying the biggest upturn in volumes.

ACI, which today released the monthly traffic figures for airports across Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, attributes the rise in throughput to the start of the holiday season in China.

Elsewhere in Asia-Pacific, according to ACI, airports in Japan and Korea enjoyed robust growth, once again the country’s respective airports benefitting from national holidays in Japan and China.

Tokyo Narita (NRT), Osaka Kansai (KIX) and Seoul Incheon (ICN) grew at +6.2%, +9.6% and +6.8% respectively. 

It was a different story in India, however, where passenger traffic continued to trend downward in May, although ACI notes that the pace of decline decelerated especially in the domestic sector as the market adjusted to the impact of the service suspension of Jet Airways.

Mixed results were recorded among the large airports: Delhi (DEL) -10.5%, Mumbai (BOM) -9.8% and Bangalore (BLR) +6.2%.

In the Middle East, the overall passenger traffic growth was flat at -0.1%. Dubai (DXB), the largest hub in the region, declined -21.1% this month as one of the two runways was closed for refurbishment since mid-April.

On the other hand, Doha (DOH) experienced strong growth at +14.7% and appeared to be gradually recovering to its throughput levels before the diplomatic crisis.

In terms of air freight, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East declined at -5.7% and -4.0% respectively amid the ongoing trade tensions between the US and China, and weak global trade volumes.

Whilst most major freight hubs reported negative growth in May, a number of airports managed to generate positive growth, led by Guangzhou (CAN) +4.8%, Doha (DOH) +2.9% and Shenzhen (SZX) +2.8%.