ACI Traffic Forecast February 2010:
Emerging markets move ahead while mature markets continue to struggle
Preliminary figures indicate that in 2009, year over year traffic declined by 2.6% where emerging markets, such as Brazil or China, surged ahead during the second half of the year but in parallel, the two largest aviation markets, Europe and North America, each declined by over 5% last year.
The start of 2010 should be marked by stronger economic growth in the emerging markets but the economic recovery of mature markets is lagging and very fragile. Additionally, external factors (storms in Europe in January and in February in the USA) will further hamper short term traffic demand while the figure is May reflects the technical recovery from the H1N1 flu which had depressed demand a year before most notably on the American continent. Read more» 