“Talking to our members I get the feeling that January is going to be worse than December, and even November, which was down 8.2 percent,” ACI Europe Director General Olivier Jankovec told Reuters.
“We have members with even a double-digit decrease,” Jankovec said, adding that “2009 will be an annus horribilis traffic-wise. There will be job losses.”
ACI Europe represents about 440 airports in 45 European countries, which together handle 90 percent of Europe’s commercial air traffic.
Jankovec said he was particularly worried about freight traffic, which fell 21.4 percent year-on-year in December and is an indicator of the strength of international trade.
“The freight figures are an indication of how the economy is affecting aviation and will translate into further declines in passenger traffic in the months to come,” he said.
“I’m not saying we’ll see a 20 per cent decrease in passengers, but there’s still room for further declines.”
“On a gut feeling, we’ll see a decline of 5 per cent in 2009 for the whole European airport industry, but there’s a lot of uncertainty about the depth and length of the crisis,” Jankovec said.