Singapore airport passenger traffic up by 10% in 2011

It's one contributing country to Asia Pacific's 5.7% growth its but lags behind peers in terms of passenger traffic volume.

Singapore's Changi Airport recorded a 10% increase in its passenger traffic for 2011.

In a report released last March 27, The Airports Council International said that many of  Asia's airports recorded a double digit growth in 2011 due to its robust economic growth. Among the cities mentioned in the report are New Delhi (DEL) at 21%, Jakarta (CGK) at 19%, Bangkok (BKK) at 12 %, Guangzhou (CAN), and Kuala Lumpur (KUL) all up by about 10%.

Beijing (PEK), which handled over 77 million passengers in 2011, is the busiest airport in the region and take second place in the world’s ranking just behind Atlanta. The other 4 airports in the region with the most passenger traffic are Tokyo Haneda (HND), Hong Kong (HKG), Jakarta (CGK) and Dubai (DXB).

The council said that they've recorded an increase of 1.43 billion or 5.7% passenger traffic in airports in the Asia-Pacific region for 2011.

Freight traffic on the other hand was not promising. The region recorded a decrease of 1.5% compared to 2010 affected by the uncertainty of the world's economy.

Patti Chau, regional director of ACI Asia-Pacific however remains positive with the report.

“Despite all the difficult times we had in 2011, it is rewarding to see that the region has recovered and recorded a healthy and positive growth in passenger traffic comparing to 2010. It proves the resilience of our economy and the strong fundamentals of our region. As for freight traffic, although the result was not as good as we have forecasted, it is still encouraging to see that this region accounted for over 40% of the world’s total traffic and out of the 5 busiest cargo airports, 3 are in our region,” she said.