ACI Media Releases

Montreal, 31 March 2014 – Based on reports from over 1105 airports worldwide, Airports Council International (ACI) preliminary passenger traffic results for 2013 show that the top six ranked positions with respect to the world’s busiest airports remained unchanged as compared to the previous year. Although Atlanta (-1.1%) remains the world’s busiest airport, Beijing (+2.2%) continues to close the gap in second position. London-Heathrow (+3.3%) remains in third while Tokyo-Haneda (+3.2%) preserves fourth position. Chicago-O’Hare (+0.2%) and Los Angeles (+4.7) maintain fifth and sixth ranks respectively.

24 March 2014 (Montreal) – Airports Council International (ACI) is pleased to announce this year’s inductees into ACI’s Director General’s Roll of Excellence. The honour recognizes those airports which, in the opinion of the passengers who participated in ACI’s Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Surveys, have consistently held service excellence as a top priority.

Montréal, March 20, 2014 – Angela Gittens, Director General of Airports Council International (ACI), and Dominique Anglade, President and CEO of Montréal International, announced that ACI would expand its activities in Montréal to develop its Airport Excellence (APEX) Programme. The expansion will create nine permanent jobs and economic spin-offs of $1.7 million a year.

Montréal, 10 March 2014 – Global passenger traffic started the year strong with year-over-year growth of over 6.4% for the month of January. This comes after a rise of 4% in passenger traffic for 2013 as a whole. Most of the buoyant activity in passenger traffic stems from double-digit growth rates of over 10% in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. International travel continues to post robust growth with an increase of 7.8% whereas domestic traffic increased by 5.1% for the month of January.

19 February 2014 (Montreal) – Airports Council International (ACI) is pleased to announce the recipients of the prestigious 2013 Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Awards. As the industry’s most comprehensive customer service benchmarking tool, the ACI ASQ survey reliably captures passengers’ immediate appraisal from check-in through departure at the gate at more than 285 airports. These awards represent passengers’ views on 34 key service indicators and are an objective and accurate indicator of the top world-wide performing airports.

Montréal, 11 February 2014 – Global passenger traffic ended the year strong with year-over-year growth of over 6% for the month of December. This represents the month with the highest growth over a twelve month period. Both international and domestic traffic performed above the annualized average achieving growth rates of 6.6% and 6.2% respectively. For the year as a whole, 2013 saw passenger traffic increase by 4%. This growth in air travel occurs in a year that was riddled with economic challenges ranging from the cyclical slowdown in emerging markets to the lingering economic uncertainties in the euro area and the United States.

Montréal, 10 January 2014 – The world’s airports reported an overall passenger growth of 3.1% in November driven mainly by international traffic, which saw an increase of 4%, while domestic traffic grew modestly by 2.2%. Latin America-Caribbean, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East all experienced robust year-over-year growth of 8.9%, 6.1% and 6.1% respectively. Europe experienced growth of 3.3%. On the other hand, both North America and Africa were in decline for the month of November contracting by 0.9% and 8.4% respectively. Among the world’s major airports, Dubai (DXB) reported the highest year-over-year growth in passenger traffic at 9.5%, which placed it fifth overall in total passenger numbers for the month of November.

12 December 2013 (Geneva/Montreal) – Airports Council International (ACI) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) jointly to develop Smart Security (SmartS). With the MoU, ACI and IATA can better align their resources and expertise to improve the journey from curb to boarding. Passengers will be able to proceed through security checkpoints with minimal inconvenience, security resources are allocated based on risk, and airport facilities are optimized.  

Montréal, 9 December 2013 – Airports Council International announced traffic results showing that global passenger traffic continued along its growth path for the month of October increasing by 4.9% from the previous year. With global passenger growth in the realm of 3% year-over-year for the last twelve months, October represented a banner month for passenger traffic as airports in advanced economies bounced back with strong gains heading into the third quarter of 2013.