Asia drives air traffic growth as travellers avoid Europe
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Rising demand for air travel in Asia Pacific and the Middle East continues to drive the industry’s global growth, new data has revealed.
According to IATA’s latest monthly traffic report, global air passenger traffic increased 5.9% in July 2016. But there was a distinct east-west divide in terms of growth, with traffic on airlines based in Asia Pacific rising 9.6% and the Middle East jumping 12.5%, compared to slower rises of 2.8% and 3.4% in North America and Europe respectively.
IATA noted that the fear of terror attacks in Europe appears to be impacting demand; traffic on Asia-Europe routes fell 0.9% in July while international traffic within Asia rose 8.1% – a four-month high. This suggests that Asian travellers are putting off European travel in favour of local flights.
International traffic on European airlines has increased at a rate of just 1.4% since March, when the Brussels airport attack took place.
“July saw demand strengthen, after a softening in June. Demand was stimulated by lower fares which, in turn, were supported by lower oil prices. And near record high load factors demonstrate that people want to travel,” said Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s new director general & CEO.
“But,” he added, “there are some important sub-plots to the narrative of strong demand. Long-haul travel to Europe, for example, suffered in the aftermath of a spate of terrorist attacks.”
Overall, international traffic growth (+7.1%) outpaced domestic (+3.8%) in July. The weakness of the domestic sector reflected the continued downturn in Brazilian traffic (-6.8%), a drop in Russian demand (-3.2%) and the slowdown of domestic growth in the US (+1.2%). But these were offset by continued strong demand for flights in India (+26.2%) and China (+10.2%).
In the face of terrorism and other threats, de Juniac said that the aviation industry must be able to adapt quickly to a changing landscape.
“The environment in which aviation operates is dynamic – even volatile. Speed is of the essence. As an industry we must be prepared for rapid innovation in order to manage shocks and take advantage of opportunities as they arise,” he concluded.
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