After a strong first quarter (which included the earlier-than-usual Easter), Spain’s airports had a tough second quarter with traffic down in both April and June. In the third quarter airport traffic has fallen 3.7% in July, 2.5% in August and 8.9% in September. Both Barcelona and Malaga reported double-digit drops in passenger numbers last month and even Madrid was down 9.8%.
 |
| Source: AENA |
Even Girona’s recent rapid growth rate has fallen to around 10% in the third quarter, while Alicante and Valencia, despite being new Ryanair bases, experienced little growth in September.
 |
| Source: AENA |
Among the top 15 Spanish airports seven airports saw traffic fall in the first nine months of the year. In the first half of 2008 only two airports had reported a reduction in passenger numbers among the leading airports.
The only Spanish airports still reporting double-digit year-to-date growth are Zaragoza (+19.3%), Girona (+19.1%) and Santander (+14.0%). Airports reporting the biggest fall in year-to-date traffic are Vitoria (-65.0%), Leon (-18.5%), Jerez (-13.6%) and Almeria (-10.5%). The recent demise of Spanish regional airline Lagunair will be further bad news for Leon airport.
Rail now taking around 35% of Barcelona – Madrid air market
The latest data from AENA indicates that the new high-speed rail (HSR) service between Madrid and Barcelona has reduced air travel demand between the two cities by around 35%. In 2007 the route carried almost five million passengers. This year the figure is likely to fall to around 3.5 million.
 |
| Source: AENA |
In September air traffic on the route was down almost 40%, though given the general state of air travel demand in Spain at present not all of that can decline can be attributed to competition from HSR.
Comments
Comments are closed