"D/FW slips in airport traffic"

Saturday, June 29, 2002

D/FW slips in airport traffic 
Dallas falls behind Tokyo to become sixth-busiest hub 
By TERRI LANGFORD
The Dallas (TX) Morning News 


Last year's post-Sept. 11 drop in passengers has pushed Dallas/Fort
Worth International Airport down a notch - to sixth-busiest airport in
the world. 

The airport, which had ranked fifth-busiest in passenger traffic in
2000, suffered a 9.2 percent shortfall - about 5.5 million passengers.
It was the largest percentage decline among the top 10 airports and the
fifth-largest among the top 30. The new figures, released Friday, show
D/FW Airport and Tokyo switching places in the rankings for passenger
traffic. 

"We congratulate ... [Haneda Airport's] growth with a new runway and
transfer of some international charter traffic from Narita, [Japan],"
Joe Lopano, the airport's executive vice president of marketing, said in
a written statement. "D/FW is still on track to return to 2001 passenger
levels by the spring of 2003, and our new international terminal opening
in 2005 will keep pushing us to the top of passenger airports in the
world." 

In 2000, D/FW Airport had 60.6 million passengers. That number fell to
55.1 million last year, according to Airports Council International, the
airport trade organization. 

In the first month after the Sept. 11 attacks, passenger traffic dropped
by as much as 35 percent. Today, passenger traffic nationwide is down
about 9 percent from a year ago. 

D/FW retained its third-place ranking for aircraft takeoffs and landings
on the ACI list. Chicago was No. 1, and Atlanta was No. 2. D/FW ranked
21st among the world's airports for total cargo. 

For the complete report, click on traffic data at www.airports.org 

Attached Graphic:

World's Busiest Airports

busiest.jpg