The first quarter of this year came with the first decline, 17%, of the air traffic on the biggest airport in the country, the Henri Coanda in Bucharest (Otopeni), while for the airports used by low-cost companies it came with up to 20% growth. ZF presents the first analysts of the passenger traffic in Romania, built on the data provided by airports and the Association of Airports in Romania.
"The number of passengers went down by 17% in the first quarter this year compared with the same time of last year, to almost 882,000 passengers. Our airport handles business traffic, which is going down," said Valentin Iordache, quality manager of the airport, which posted 83 million euros in turnover and a total number of 5.1 million passengers in 2008. This was the first decline in passenger traffic in ten years, he added.
Most of the traffic on Henri Coanda consists of regular flights of traditional airlines, with low-cost and charter flights accounting for very little of the total.
One of the regular airlines operating from Otopeni is Tarom, which carried 202,500 passengers in the first two months of this year, down 11.4% on the corresponding period of last year, according to data of the Association of European Airlines.
Iordache also added that the number of aircraft takeoffs and landings had maintained at the same level as last year, that is 16,300 flights. This means it was the aircraft load that went down.
"Forecasts point to a slight decline for the entire year, yet I hope we will maintain at last year’s level," he said.
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