Asia-Pacific tops in March traffic growth
Asia-Pacific showed the strongest growth in passenger traffic in March compared with all other regions, fuelled by a rise in intra-Asia and Asia-Europe route volumes.
Asia-Pacific demand, measured in revenue passenger kilometres, in March jumped 10.7% year-on-year, according to figures from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
That growth was above the global average of 6.8% recorded for the month.
Latin America was the second best performer with 7.8% growth in March, followed by Europe (6%), Africa (4.9%), the Middle East (4.7%) and North America (3.2%).
March’s global demand growth represented a moderate slowdown relative to February’s performance after adjusting for the distortion in year-to-year comparisons owing to the extra day in February 2016, said IATA analysts.
The ban on large electronics on certain routes to the US and Britain occurred too late in March to have an effect on traffic figures, the analysts said.
But IATA secretary-general Alexandre de Juniac said strong traffic demand continued throughout the first quarter, supported by a combination of lower fares and a broad-based upturn in global economic conditions.
“The price of air travel has fallen by 10% in real terms over the past year and that has contributed to record load factors,” he said. “We will have to wait another month to see the effects of the laptop ban on demand.”
March saw combined airline seat capacity grow by 6.1% and load factor climb by half a percentage point to 80.4% — a record for the month.
International passenger demand edged up 6.4% compared with March 2016, although it slowed down slightly relative to February after adjusting for the leapyear distortion.
Airlines in all regions recorded growth, with total capacity climbing by 6.1%. Load factor rose 0.2 percentage points to 78.8%.
Domestic passenger demand rose 7.6% in March, driven primarily by double-digit traffic increases in China, India and Russia, supported by strong single-digit growth in Japan.