LCCs lead growth in intraregional travel
Asia Pacific has recorded a meteoric rise in intra-regional air travel over the last decade, and the low cost sector continues to drive capacity upwards through 2012.
The latest OAG data shows how Asia Pacific’s dynamic intra-regional market continues its positive growth trend with a yoy increase of 5% in frequency and 7% in seats in December 2012 while all other regional markets excluding Africa are seeing demand fall. In December alone, this amounts to an additional 6.7 million seats, while for the full year capacity has grown 7% leading to an additional 84 million seats when compared with 2011.
The low cost sector within Asia Pacific accounts for the majority of this growth, with 93% of the additional capacity in 2012 (78 million seats) being operated by LCCs. Subsequently their share of the market within Asia Pacific has grown dramatically from 19% in 2011 to 24% in 2012.
Having sustained such high growth rates in intraregional travel, with seat capacity doubling over the last decade, Asia Pacific has surpassed North America in 2009 to become the largest intra-regional market. In the last 10 years, capacity within the region has seen average annual growth of 7.3% taking the size of the market from 652 million seats in 2003 to just over 1.2 billion seats in 2012.