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April, 2013Green shoots: Coming soon
Just as things looked like they were stabilising, the Cyprus financial drama came as a stark reminder that Europe’s financial crisis is all but resolved – and that our continent remains a weak spot in the World economy. Indeed, the overall traffic trend for Europe’s airports remains negative. Only freight traffic seems to be finally picking up, although from a very low base. Unless you are a Turkish or Russian airport, this winter season bears all the signs of the much talked about triple dip recession. 2013 might well be a year to forget.
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November, 2012The Financing Cliff
As I write these lines, Eurostat has just released its latest figures showing that the Eurozone has fallen back into recession. At the same time, the EU is engaged in tense negotiations over its budget for the next 7 years – with Member States arguing for cuts and the European Commission pleading for more money to be spent on growth-enabling sectors and projects.
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June, 2012Better, Fitter & More Performant
With uncertainty being the new constant, becoming the leanest is the mantra for any business across Europe. Airports are no exception – and while air traffic showed remarkable resilience last year, it is now being hit by a Eurozone crisis that leaves very few activities untouched.
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March, 20122012 – The Moment of Truth
To some extent, last year has proven to be a surprisingly good year for European aviation. Despite dark clouds gathering over the economy, passenger traffic has shown a remarkable resilience throughout 2011, growing in excess of 7%. Of course, a closer look ultimately reveals a much contrasted picture between national markets, well beyond the usual divide between a mature Western Europe and an ‘emerging’ Eastern Europe. But the underlying trend is that passenger traffic has systematically outperformed GDP – even in a country like Greece, where it kept growing by nearly 2% in the face of an economy shrinking by 6.6%.
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December, 2011Double Dip, Back Down to Hard Ground
There’s an old saying that good news doesn’t sell newspapers. With the ongoing saga of the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis, I’m sure I’m not the only one who would gladly buy a newspaper pushing an overdue wave of good news. As it stands, the headlines look set to be gloomy for some time. The impact of the sovereign debt crisis on aviation is already significant. Freight traffic stopped growing before the summer and has since gone into negative figures. Weakening business confidence has led companies to stop replenishing stocks. With industrial output in Europe now at a standstill – or even decreasing, the awful truth is evident: recession is at our doorstep.
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October, 2011Every flight begins at the airport
Welcome to the new look ‘Airport Business’. I hope you like the updated design and the new features we have introduced. You may also recognise that this editorial’s headline is our new motto, launched with our brand new ACI EUROPE website recently.
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April, 2011From Fire-Fighting to Future-Proofing
With passenger traffic figures showing a stronger and more dynamic recovery, the early months of 2011 finally delivered the positive signals that most of Europe’s airports had been waiting for all through 2010.
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January, 2011578,062
578,062 Tonnes. Thanks to Airport Carbon Accreditation, this is the amount of CO2 emissions that Europe’s airports have managed to reduce so far.
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October, 2010Serving our members today and tomorrow
The peak summer months have seen European air traffic pursuing its recovery, a more than welcome trend after the unprecedented fallout caused by the Eyjafjallajoekull volcano – not to mention the massive declines of last year. With monthly passenger growth above 5% in recent months, the prospects are looking up again.
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July, 20104 Lessons from the volcanic ash crisis
Since 2008, it seems to me that writing for this editorial on anything but the state of near-constant crisis in which the aviation industry has lived would put me off message. But as I was already looking ahead to the summer, I thought Europe’s airports would be back to some form of operational and commercial ‘normality’. Alas, this proved to be nothing more than wishful thinking. After the global crisis and a renewed terrorist threat, a volcanic eruption was just around the corner.
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March, 2010Connecting Aviation Policy with Market Reality
Europe’s airports certainly did not need yet another terrorist threat in the final days of 2009 to conclude their most challenging year on record. With nearly 3 years of growth lost for passenger traffic – the equivalent of close to 100 million passengers gone – and 4 years of growth lost for freight, the past year already deserved to be called an annus horribilis.
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December, 2009Renewed call for competitive crisis relief
Fresh data for the third quarter of 2009 released by Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office, have confirmed expectations. With eurozone countries reporting a +0.4% growth compared with the previous three months, European recession is officially over. Although this is certainly good news for aviation, it cannot be taken for more than what it is: brighter light at the end of the tunnel.
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October, 2009Cautiously looking ahead to better prospects
A year has passed since air traffic started its unprecedented decline in the wake of Lehman Brothers bank going bust. It has certainly not been a cheerful summer for European airports. Systemic capacity cuts by airlines combined with the bankruptcy of MyAir and SkyEurope have translated into traffic losses for the vast majority of airports. Only a happy few have experienced traffic gains, exclusively driven by low cost carriers. But even then, this has often been at the expense of other airports, with aircraft moving from depressed markets to others looking more promising.
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March, 2009Small and regional is beautiful (and very challenging)
The extraordinarily pessimistic times currently befalling the global economy have seen many comparing the current situation with the infamous great depression of the 1930s. For aviation and airports in particular, the analogy fails to deliver any direct relevance.
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January, 2009Dealing with today while planning for tomorrow
As 2008 draws to a close, the forthcoming year is looking pretty bleak for airlines and airports alike. As European countries have been injecting billions of euros in their faltering banking systems in the hope of calming down financial markets and preventing the collapse of their economies, an increasing number of European airports have reported falling passenger and freight traffic figures over the last months. Although uncertainty is the order of the day and making accurate traffic forecasts is like reading a crystal ball, the magnitude of this economic crisis means that the downward trend will further accelerate in the coming months. Let’s face it, 2009 is set to be some sort annus horribilis for aviation.
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October, 2008Defining times for European aviation
This is it. Once again, aviation has entered a period of heavy turbulence. It all started with an unprecedented rise in oil prices and just as the pressure eased, there came what many portray as the worst financial crisis since the great depression of the 1930’s.
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June, 2008How Green is my Airport?
As always, June is an important month for ACI EUROPE, with European airports, their business and industry partners, policy makers and regulators gathering together for our Annual General Assembly, Congress and Exhibition, which this time around takes place in Paris. This year’s Congress is about addressing the many challenges faced by the 21st century airport, and it is no surprise that the environment and in particular, climate change will be one of the key issues for discussion.
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May, 2008EC Finally making an approach on Airport Capacity?
The never-ending escalation of fuel costs and the consequences of the global credit crunch have already taken their toll on aviation. Although Europe appears to be in a better position compared to the US, the near future definitely looks grimmer. The decision of Ryanair to ground 20 of its aircraft for this year’s winter season is quite revealing, not least because it will directly impact upon several European airports and their communities.
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February, 2008Putting customers first
As competition has become the rule of the game for airports across Europe, the need to attract and retain customers is now key to airport operations.
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October, 2007An ever complex and challenging business
As airport managers across Europe breath a sigh of relief that the peak summer season did not see any major terrorist attacks on aviation, this has not necessarily been a quiet summer for all.
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