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By Pete Harrison
BRUSSELS, Feb 6 (Reuters) - This year will be an "annus horribilis" for European airports after passenger traffic dropped 7.7 percent year-on-year in December and freight plunged more than 21 percent, the head of airports body ACI Europe said.
"Talking to our members I get the feeling that January is going to be worse than December, and even November, which was down 8.2 percent," ACI Europe Director General Olivier Jankovec told Reuters on Friday.
"We have members with even a double-digit decrease," Jankovec said, adding that "2009 will be an annus horribilis traffic-wise. There will be job losses."
ACI Europe represents about 440 airports in 45 European countries, which together handle 90 percent of Europe's commercial air traffic.
Jankovec said he was particularly worried about freight traffic, which fell 21.4 percent year-on-year in December and is an indicator of the strength of international trade.
"The freight figures are an indication of how the economy is affecting aviation and will translate into further declines in passenger traffic in the months to come," he said.
"I'm not saying we'll see a 20 percent decrease in passengers, but there's still room for further declines."
The warning came after analysts predicted British Airways would post a record loss for the fourth quarter of 2008.
"On a gut feeling, we'll see a decline of 5 percent in 2009 for the whole European airport industry, but there's a lot of uncertainty about the depth and length of the crisis," Jankovec said.
MIXED FORTUNES
The news comes against a backdrop of contrasting fortunes for European airlines.
Air France-KLM issued a profit warning last month, but Lufthansa surprised the market earlier in the week by raising its 2008 profit forecast.
Low-cost carriers easyJet and Ryanair have also raised recent forecasts, saying travellers are trading downwards during the recession.
"Eastern Europe held pretty firm until November, but then we've seen that affected, and in western Europe, the UK and Spain have been affected in particular," Jankovec said.
Prague traffic fell 13 percent in December, Warsaw was down 14 percent and Barcelona was down 16 percent.
Leisure airports, like London's Gatwick, have been hit harder than long-haul airports and hubs like Heathrow.
December traffic was down 13 percent at Gatwick, but only fell 2.2 percent at Heathrow, which specialises in transatlantic flights and business passengers.
Jankovec said that amid the crisis the industry was not pleading for bailouts, but for governments to help foot the bill for security, which represent up to 35 percent of airports' operating costs.
"This is an enormous burden," Jankovec said. "Terrorist attacks are against society and therefore it should be a state responsibility." (Reporting by Pete Harrison; Editing by David Cowell and Andrew Macdonald)