Middle East airlines once again recorded the strongest increase in international air travel, with a rise of 15.8 per cent in September compared to a year ago.

Airlines in the region continued to benefit from the strength of regional economies as well as expansion in export orders that support international business activity and business-related premium travel. Capacity rose 14.9 per cent and load factor climbed 0.6 percentage points to 78 per cent, said the International Air Transport Association (Iata).

Global air passenger traffic grew 5.3 per cent in September compared to the same month in 2013. This continues the positive growth trend for passenger demand even though the performance was slightly below the August year-over-year rise of 6.3 per cent, it said.

September capacity rose 5.1 per cent and load factor rose 0.2 percentage points to 80.3 per cent.
 
“Overall, demand for passenger travel is growing in line with expectations. We saw, however, some shifting of the sources of that growth in September, largely driven by economic factors. The strengthening of the US and Asian economies was offset by weakness in Europe and Latin America,” said Tony Tyler, Iata’s director general and CEO.

“The three big stories in September were Europe, Russia and India,” said Tyler.

European airlines reported 3.9 per cent growth for international demand. That’s a significant drop from the 7 per cent reported in August indicating the impact of the Air France crew strike and a general weakening of European economic prospects.

Year-on-year growth for Russian domestic demand fell to 5.6 per cent in September from 10.1 per cent in August. The impact of price stimulus wore-off and the weakness revealed could be a first indicator of the economic impact of the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

Indian domestic travel spiked with a 26.3 per cent growth in September (several times the 7.6 per cent growth recorded in August) as a result of price stimulation. - TradeArabia News Service