Kloten International Airport, Zurich, Switzerland

Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Geneva’s Cointrin International Airport will most likely end 2009 with 2 percent fewer passengers, a figure that is healthier than those most airports will show this year. The figure was provided by Robert Deillon, president of AIG, which manages the airport, in an interview with Swiss wire service ATS. Deillon says that only four months showed drops, while traffic increased by 4 percent each month in October and November, compared to a year earlier.

Zurich’s Kloten airport is expected to show similar figures, says Deillon.

The figures contrast with the bigger industry picture, provided 15 December by Iata (International Air Transport Association) at an annual press conference in Geneva.

“We are seeing some fairly robust gorwth in emerging markets,” said Iata’s chief economist, Brian Pearce, told journalists. “And that’s starting to be reflected in air travel and starting to be reflected in air trade.” But developed economies, which are the vast bulk of air travel, are still weak, he pointed out.

“Certainly we’re back to levels of air travel that are similar to where we were a year ago, so we’re out of the year-on-year negative travel. We’ve seen an upturn in air travel. But we’ve only recovered about half the losses we saw in 2008.”

Links to other sites: 24 Heures (Fre), GVA airport, Iata

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.