The political upheaval and revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East led to huge declines in passengers of up to 71% to effected countries, new ACI traffic figures for February reveal.

The unrest in Tunisia and Egypt resulted in a 21% decline in traffic across Africa, with drastic reductions seen at Cairo (-54%), Sharm El Sheikh (-71%) and Tunis (-31%). Bahrain also saw passenger numbers drop 15% due to the social unrest.

Andreas Schimm, director of economics at the ACI, gave a gloomy prediction for March, saying: "While the situation in North Africa remains fragile with the focus shifting to Libya, the effects of the natural and nuclear disaster in Japan that occurred in March will have a far bigger impact on March results both in the Asia-Pacific region as well as depressing global passenger numbers."

But Schimm added: "It would be misleading to interpret these figures as a precursor to a cooling world economy.

"Growth rates were exceptionally high during the first half of the 2010 reference period, and the situation is already positive if the volumes reached then can be upheld."

Global passenger traffic rose moderately in February and freight volumes remained stagnant during the month in another indication of disruption caused by events in North Africa and the Middle East.

In total, passenger numbers grew by 3.9% in February, with international traffic up 4.5% and domestic traffic up 3.4%.

Events in North Africa and the Middle East appear to have convinced leisure travelers to alternative leisure destinations - such as Spain and Turkey - and so overall global growth in February remained positive, said ACI.

The freight situation was more of a concern as there was no growth in February globally, compared with a 22% increase in the same period in 2010.

Asia Pacific and the Middle East recorded declines in freight traffic of 3.4% and 9.3% respectively. Globally, however, international freight continued to expand by 1.6%.