Airlines generally struggled to gain any momentum in 2002, although capacity cuts more than matched the fall in traffic numbers and Asia bucked the trend with healthy increases in traffic and capacity.
Year-end traffic figures demonstrate how the industry is still struggling to right itself a year after the crisis. Many Western carriers continue to see traffic below the levels of 2000.
However, carriers in the Asia-Pacific region are already back on course. China, in particular stands out from the crowd with majors such as China Eastern and China Southern continuing to show double-digit growth regardless of crisis elsewhere. Dragonair, with its newly awarded Chinese route rights, has also grown strongly. Meanwhile, Cathay Pacific, and Singapore Airlines posted more modest traffic gains, but both are up against the base level of two years ago.
IATA estimates that growth in Asia helped international passenger traffic to stay steady over 2002. However, that masks falls of 4.9% for European carriers and a smaller 0.9% for North American carriers.
The Association of European Airlines (AEA) reports that overall traffic for its members was down by 4.6% on 2001, and still some 6.7% lower than in 2000. However, capacity fell by a sharper 8.8% last year which helped load factors climb to 73.7% for the year.
Of the major carriers, only Air France appears to have added substantial capacity in 2002 and this was a modest 1.7%. Alitalia was down nearly 18%and British Airways also slashed 8.8%of its seats as traffic fell away. Swiss also shows up as a heavy loser compared with its predecessor Swissair, which had gone bust by the end of November 2001.
The weakest area among AEA carriers was the North Atlantic, where traffic was down by 7.6%, against a drop off in capacity of 14.2%. The South Atlantic also suffered, mainly due to the economic crisis in Argentina, with traffic down by 10.8%. Within Europe, traffic was down by 4.5% for the year, while Africa and Asia both saw tiny rises of less than 1%.
On the cargo side, there was an interesting contrast in fortunes. The Far East/Australasia market showed a 3.8% increase - not spectacular but much better than the 5.6% drop seen on the North Atlantic. The AEA notes that these two markets, which until quite recently were comparable in size, have diverged remarkably, with the Far East market now almost two-thirds larger than the North Atlantic.
AEA secretary general, Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus, says member airlines "have had to contend with losing our insurance cover, increased cost and effort in the area of security, and upheavals in our customer base. "Nevertheless, we have trimmed capacity, increased our load factors and have hopefully limited the damage to our bottom line," he adds.
A lack of any sure signs of recovery is echoed in results from the Airports Council International for the first 10 months, which show passenger traffic down by 2%, with aircraft movements down by 3%.
Source: Airline Business
