Message from the Director General

The ACI Asia-Pacific Year in Review is an excellent opportunity to reflect on the accomplishments of the Association.

As we all know, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on our industry. Although there have been some drawbacks, there have also been some bright spots.

After two challenging years, our industry is recovering despite prolonged COVID-related curbs in few key markets of the region, volatile geopolitical tensions and economic uncertainties. In 2022, passenger traffic in AsiaPacific witnessed -51.8% of 2019 levels, particularly due to prolonged travel restrictions in China, Hong Kong and Japan. Middle East has had a relatively positive year, and are just -21.6% short of 2019 levels.

Our pandemic response taught us to be agile, responsive, creative and innovative and we have used these learnings to enhance our goals for the coming years.

The year 2022 has been a successful and fruitful year for ACI Asia-Pacific. As the pandemic environment evolved, every member of the ACI Asia-Pacific team significantly contributed to our advocacy and engagements.

As the voice of airports, we continued advocating members’ interests at numerous forums, particularly ICAO and other industry association meetings, heightening industry’s awareness of the work of ACI and deepening relationships and networks.

We were glad our Regional Assembly and Board Meeting were held successfully in Singapore after two years of pandemic-induced break, providing us the strategic directions and goals.

In keeping with our mission to promote excellence in airport management and operations, we worked proactively with our members and institutional stakeholders.

The Airport Economics team stepped up its advocacy efforts to advance a number of economic policy matters on topics including aeronautical charges, economic regulations, slot allocation and the value of airport networks. One of the highlights of the year, is the launch of our Airports Industry Outlook, a quarterly analytical data, designed to keep members updated about the overall trends of airports in terms of traffic and revenues.

Security of passengers and staff remains one of the aviation industry’s highest priorities. We continued to extensively promote the adoption of One Stop Security and APEX for aerodrome safety at various forums, besides launching few guideline documents.

Combating climate change remains a top focus on our environmental sustainability agenda. With an increasing number of states and airports in the region committing to Net Zero Carbon Emissions as their Long-Term Carbon Goal, ACI Asia-Pacific continued its advocacy, capacity building, and best practices sharing efforts to assist airports in facilitating sustainable recovery, operation, and growth. To this effect, we developed a policy paper on decarbonisation to help airports achieve their emission goals.

Our HR Committee, too, was active deliberating on strategies for recruiting and establishing or re-building competences.

Effective communication is one of the fundamentals of the association. As a result of our new communication approach, we have made great strides in terms of member communication as well as media outreach. Our media outreach has increased significantly, and as a result, the association’s exposure has widened.

As we emerge from the pandemic, our Events team are gearing up for curating events to provide our members enriching experience.

Despite the limitations of the pandemic, we sought to creatively engage with members through a variety of events. We are now gearing for our inaugural global conference Airports Innovate, hosted by Oman Airports.

We are on the cusp of a major expansion with the opening of a sub-regional office for Middle East in Riyadh. I would like to thank MATARAT Holding for their generosity in supporting the establishment. This provides us an opportunity to envision a positive future, with a focused approach to achieve our goals across the region we represent.

Airport Regular membership grew to 127 in 47 countries/ territories, operating 621 airports, while we welcomed sixteen new WBPs to our community.

With a new strategic plan and direction, we will continue to serve our members in line with our new vision to put AsiaPacific and Middle East airports at the forefront of global aviation.

Stefano Baronci Director General ACI Asia-Pacific