International and domestic airports around the world saw a 3% drop in passenger traffic last year, accelerated by the September 11 attacks in the US, the industry's global body said today.
ACI, the Geneva-based Airports Council International, said a slowdown in travel was already under way earlier in 2001 but worsened sharply after September 11 to produce the first decline in a decade.
Of the world's 30 busiest airports, 27 handled fewer passengers than in 2000, with San Francisco, the worst hit, seeing a drop of 15.7%. St Louis, Missouri, was down by 12.6%, and Newark and Kennedy Airport in New York by over 10%.
The busiest four world airports all saw declines, from regular top spot Atlanta, down 5.4% to 75.8 million, Chicago's O'Hare down 6.9% to 66.8 million, Los Angeles down 8.3% to 61 million and London's Heathrow down 6% to 60.7 million.
But three airports, Tokyo's Haneda, Madrid and Bangkok, bucked the trend, seeing growth of between 3 and 4%.
Industry analysts said this was largely due to the fact that all three were largely shielded from the heavy fall-off in travel by US citizens after the September attacks in which four passenger jets on US domestic flights were destroyed.
