Airport passenger traffic up nearly 5%

Air Pacific Airbus A330 branded as Fiji Airways.

Worldwide passenger traffic through airports has risen close to 5 per cent to more than six billion with Atlanta still the world's busiest.

Airports Council International has released the latest edition of the world airport traffic report covering 2000 airports in 160 countries which shows traffic in emerging markets and developing economies growing faster (8.7 per cent) than in advanced countries (1.8 per cent) in 2013.

"With many major economies remaining in a fragile state, 2013 can best be characterised as a year of unstable recovery for the global economy," said Angela Gittens, director-general of ACI World.

"The opportunities that lie ahead for aviation are numerous, particularly in emerging markets," she said.

Overall, worldwide airport passenger numbers increased by 4.6 per cent last year to 6.3 billion, registering increases in all six regions.

Atlanta handles the most passengers - 94.4 million - although that figure was down on the year before.

Beijing was second with 83.7 million passengers, and had subdued growth of 2.2 per cent in 2013 compared with the double-digit growth that it achieved in previous years.

One of the fastest-growing airports is Dubai International, which moved from 10th to seventh position as a result of its passenger traffic growing more than 15 per cent during the year.

The emirate has plans for a US$32 billion ($39 billion) expansion of the city's second airport that aims to make it the world's biggest. It plans to handle 120 million passengers a year by 2022 - and possibly as many as 200 million by 2050.

Istanbul's Ataturk Airport , which ranks 18th, and Kuala Lumpur, 20th, both had double-digit passenger growth rates last year, with increases of 13.7 per cent and 19.1 per cent respectively.

The world's top 30 airport cities handle more than a third of global passenger traffic. London remains the world's largest airport system with almost 140 million passengers handled at six airports. New York maintains the second position with 112 million passengers at three airports. Tokyo is the third city market with 105 million passengers, Airports Council International says.

Worldwide aircraft movements increased slightly by 0.6 per cent in 2013 to 82 million. Cargo through airports increased 0.9 per cent in 2013 to 96 million tonnes.

Auckland Airport handles about 15 million passengers a year.