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Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - For the first time in a consistent streak of traffic growth, route cancel lations and regional political circumstances have triggered a decline in Queen Alia International Airport’s (QAIA)year-to-date (YTD) and monthly passenger traffic (PAX) and aircraft movements (ACM)during the first four months of 2015.However, positive results were registered across the board for cargo figures.

The decrease in traffic during the first four months of the year was primarily attributed to the cancellation of routes, paired with ongoing disturbances in neighboring countries, which led to fewer passengers and flights passing through the region and arriving at QAIA. Between January and April 2015,the Kingdom’s prime gateway witnessed an 8.5% YTD decrease in passengers, reaching 2,089,816 PAX compared to 2,282,894 PAX during the same period in 2014. ACM also dipped by 6.5% to register at 21,644 ACM as opposed to 23,153ACM a year earlier.Despite the mentioned drops, QAIA - which recently received the international Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Award for ‘Best Airport by Region: Middle East’ and ‘Best Improvement by Region: Middle East’ for2014 - experienced a healthy 4.9% YTD increase in cargo traffic, totaling at 31,290 tons between January and April 2015.

A closer look at the statistics shows January’s monthly passengers slipping 2.8% from last year to total at 533,105 PAX, in addition to a 3.8%fall in ACMfiguresto reach 5,459ACM, whereas cargo traffic went up 0.1% with 6,825 tons. Likewise, the month of February sawa decline in both PAX and ACM figures, asPAX went down 15.5% to reach 451,097 and ACM dropped by 8.1% to stand at 4,968, while cargo traffic significantly jumped by 5.2% as a result of handling 6,996 tons of cargo.In March, PAX decreased by 7.3%to come in at 527,075 and ACM declined by 7.5% to register at5,517 flights, while marking a 5.3% increase over the same month last year for cargo traffic with 8,727 tons. As for April, PAX dropped by 8.4% to reach 578,539 and ACM slowed by 6.7% to stand at 5,700, with cargo growing by 8.4% to record at 8,742 tons.

“QAIA’s passenger and aircraft traffic decrease during the first four months of 2015 was largely driven by a number of route cancellations earlier this year, thus slowing flight movements. Furthermore, the region's ongoing political turmoilhascur bed inbound tourism despite Jordan’s internal stability. Nonetheless,we remain committed to off setting recent traffic declines by providing passengers with the best possible travel experience, in coordination with our competent teams and trusted partners,”commented Kjeld Binger, CEO of Airport International Group (AIG) -the Jordanian company responsible for the rehabilitation, expansion and operation of QAIA.