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karatecatman · Guest

Atlanta remains busiest airport for passengers, flights, ratings say Atlanta’s Hartsfield International held its ranking as the world’s busiest passenger airport in 2006, followed by Chicago’s O’Hare and London’s Heathrow, according to preliminary figures released Monday, says BBC TV.
Some 84.8 million passengers went through the Atlanta terminal, the Geneva-based Airports Council International said. It was a 1.2 percent decline over the previous year. O’Hare had 76.2 million, and Heathrow 67.5 million, both less than 1 percent lower than in 2005.
Traffic at U.S. airports declined because of the restructuring of Delta and Northwest and the closure of Independence Air, the council said.
‘‘Heathrow’s flat results stemmed from the August security scare and severe weather in December, but also show the stagnating effect of lack of expansion.’’
Filling out the top 10 were Tokyo’s Haneda, with 65.2 million; Los Angeles, 61 million; Dallas-Fort Worth, 60 million; Paris Charles d Gaulle, 56.8 million; Frankfurt, 52.8 million; Beijing, 48.5 million; and Denver, 47.3 million.
Beijing was the top performer in the Asia Pacific region with an 18 percent increase in passenger traffic, the council said. Denver was the best U.S. performer with a 9.1 percent increase.
Hartsfield also led in numbers of flights, handling 976,447, a decline of 0.4 percent. O’Hare, which was first in 2005, finished second last year with 958,643, a drop of 1.4 percent.
The total number of passengers worldwide rose by 5.1 percent to 4.4 billion.
Memphis, Tennessee — headquarters of Federal Express — continued to have the world’s busiest airport for cargo, handling 3.7 million metric tons (4.08 million US tons). Hong Kong was second with 3.6 million metric tons (3.97 million US tons). Anchorage, Alaska, was third with 2.8 million metric tons (3.09 million US tons).

karatecatman · Guest

Reuters:

Beijing, Shanghai airports boomed in 2006-report
By Robert Evans
GENEVA, March 7 (Reuters) - China’s Beijing and Shanghai were by far the world’s fastest growing major airports for passengers and cargo in 2006, a year that saw booming business in Asia, the global airports body ACI reported on Wednesday.
Also expanding passenger business fast, although from a much lower base, are India’s New Delhi and Mumbai, gateways to Asia’s other burgeoning trade power, figures released by ACI, the Geneva-based Airports Council International, showed.
While Atlanta in the United States remained the busiest world airport for passengers with a total of nearly 85 million, its figures were down 1.2 percent on 2005.
Memphis, U.S. hub for major air cargo services, remained the top freight airport, processing nearly 3.7 million tonnes, but this was just 2.6 percent more than in 2005.
Beijing, which next year hosts the Olympic Games, saw an 18.3 percent climb in travellers passing through to a total of 48.5 million, making it the globe’s ninth busiest airport, six places up from 2005.
In freight handled, Beijing also saw whopping growth of 31.6 percent, making it the 20th busiest world cargo airport, while Shanghai, China’s top business city, climbed from ninth to sixth place, with freight figures up by 16.3 percent.
Overall, ACI said, global passenger traffic through domestic and international airports increased by five percent last year over 2005, and cargo was up by nearly 4 percent -- figures in line with similar returns from the airlines body IATA.
The Asia-Pacific region as a whole saw the biggest growth in passengers, up 10.3 percent, against 6.4 percent in Europe and only 0.7 percent in North America. The region also led in real terms in cargo, with growth of 7.2 percent.
Apart from Beijing, only two of the top 10 passenger airports recorded significant increases in travellers -- Paris in seventh position with nearly 59 million for an increase of 5.6 percent, and Denver, 10th, with 47.3 million, up 9.1 percent.
Apart from Shanghai, six more of the top 10 cargo airports in 2006 are heavily involved in Asian markets and five of these saw good or very good growth, ranging from 8.7 by Seoul through 5.9 percent by Anchorage to 5.1 percent by Hong Kong.
Tokyo’s Narita in fifth position was an exception, with a drop in cargo volume of 0.5 percent. However, other top international cargo airports saw good growth -- 9.3 percent at Louisville and 8.4 percent at Frankfurt, ACI reported.