ACI Asia Pacific reports 1.8% pax increase, cargo up 11% in Jan-2013

ACI Asia Pacific reported (15-Mar-2013) airports in the Asia Pacific region recorded a slight increase of 1.8% year-on-year in passenger traffic and a 11.3% increase in air freight traffic in Jan-2013. The industry association attributed the lower than expected increase in passenger traffic to the Chinese New Year effect as the holidays fell in the month of Jan-2012 but in February this year. Beijing Capital Airport reported the highest passenger traffic with more than 6.4 million passengers, followed by Dubai Airport with 5.5 million passengers. The other three airports on the top five list are Tokyo Haneda (4.9 million), Jakarta (4.6 million) and Hong Kong (4.5 million). Many major international airports recorded double digit growth in Jan-2013, including Dubai (+14.6%), Seoul Incheon (+11.3%) and Abu Dhabi (+19.6%). For air freight traffic, Asia-Pacific airports recorded an increase of 11.3 % while Middle Eastern airports showed an increase of 10.7 %. [more - original PR]