Middle East reports strong air traffic growth
Contributors are not employed, compensated or governed by TD, opinions and statements are from the contributor directly
The recent International Air Transport Association (IATA) global passenger traffic results for February showed demand growth of 5.4% compared to February 2013 for Middle East carriers. The numbers were a bit low as compared with January traffic. However, there was a cumulative traffic growth for first two months of 2014 around 6.9%, which compares favorably with 5.2% overall growth achieved in 2013.
February capacity rose 5.2% and load factor climbed 0.2% to 78.1%. All regions except Africa experienced positive traffic growth.
“People are flying. Strong demand is consistent with the pick-up in global economic growth, particularly in advanced economies.” said Tony Tyler, IATA’s Director General and CEO.
February international passenger traffic rose 5.5% compared to the year-ago period. Capacity rose 5.8% and load factor slipped 0.2% to 76.8%. All regions recorded year-over-year increases in demand.
Middle East carriers had a strong year-over-year traffic growth in February at 13.4% as airlines continue to benefit from strength of regional economies and solid growth in business-related premium travel. The Gulf nations witnessed a capacity increase of 12.5% and load factor climbed 0.6% to 78.9%.
However, African airlines experienced slow demand growth, up 0.1% compared to February 2013. With capacity up 4.1%, load factor fell 2.6% to 63.7%, by far lower as compared to other regions.
Comments are closed.