Three regions – Asia Pacific, Latin America & Caribbean and Middle East – recorded overall growth in July, a first for this year. Also for the first time this year, domestic traffic worldwide for July grew by 0.9 percent, driven by excellent results in the Asia Pacific region (+10.1%) and Latin America & Caribbean (+ 9.5 %). Although total international traffic remained depressed (-3.4 %) compared to July 2008, this is a marked improvement over the 7 percent decline recorded in June 2009 – June 2008 comparison. The Middle East and Africa regions both report positive international growth (respectively 11.6 and 0.7 percent increases).

The ACI FreightFlash report similarly reflects this rising traffic trend. Although results are still below 2008 figures, the steep downward spiral of the first quarters has ceased. Worldwide global freight traffic was down by 8.7 percent in July 2009 over July 2008, but is a notable improvement compared to the year to date results for January-July (-17.2 %) or for the past 12 months (-14.7%) as shown in the Summary Table below. For international freight, the Middle East region saw positive growth at a 3.5 percent increase. For domestic traffic, only Asia Pacific reported strong results (+12.1%), due in large part due to activity at Chinese airports. North America’s results were down by 3.5 percent, yet equally an improvement over previous months. European and Latin American freight results remain more seriously depressed.

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