Airports Council International World has reported that global airport passenger traffic reached about 4.7 billion in the first half of 2026, a year-on-year increase of just 0.6% and a marked slowdown from 2025’s pace. The latest annual traffic data also show airports handled a record 9.8 billion passengers in 2025, with regional performance diverging sharply in the opening months of this year.
Growth continued in Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Asia-Pacific, while North America was broadly flat. The Middle East posted the steepest decline, with traffic down 21%, as geopolitical tension and airspace disruption weighed on demand. ACI World linked the weaker first-half performance to those headwinds alongside broader economic pressure. The report covers data from 2,817 commercial airports and represents the organisation’s largest dataset to date.