This year, US freight wet-lease operator Atlas Air is the fastest growing carrier in terms of traffic, at 149.5 per cent, but this figure has to be treated with caution because it is based upon US Department of Transportation data which do not take into account the freight which Atlas Air carries on behalf of non-US carriers.
Its near-doubling of revenue suggests that UK charter operator Airtours International would have been the second fastest growing carrier had it provided traffic data in time for our deadline. As it is, that distinction goes to Jet Airways, which has established a clear lead within the independent airline sector in India, with RTK growth of over 70 per cent.
There are also strong growth performances from several smaller carriers, including US startup Midway Airlines, Italian charter carrier Air Europe SpA, TransAsia of Taiwan, World Airways, Reno Air, Air Europe, Carnival, Transaero and Mesaba, all of which grew their RTKs by over 30 per cent. Asiana and Southwest were the fastest growing of the top 50 carriers, although Asiana was unable to translate traffic growth into profitability.
Nineteen of the top 150 carriers registered declines in traffic last year, led by ValuJet, whose grounding led to a 42 per cent decline in annual RTKs. Some of the declines in traffic result from deliberate cut-backs to achieve better financial performance, as exemplified by US Airways, Gulf Air and Continental. Premiair's traffic decline arises from a nine-month reporting period as it changes its year-end.
The charter carriers continue to dominate the table of highest airline load factors, with Denmark's Premiair in the lead at 95.8 per cent. Several purely scheduled carriers achieved dramatic load factor improvements. Virgin Atlantic leapt from 10th place to sixth, with a 2.6 point rise to 79.9 per cent, the highest load factor among scheduled airlines. KLM continued to perform well in this area, and Air France and China Airlines registered noteworthy load-factor gains. A recovering Indian Airlines boosted its load factor by 3.7 points, despite competition from Jet Airways which entered the rankings at 74.8 per cent.
The tables which show the top 20 carriers by various measures of traffic remain very similar to last year. Delta remains the world's largest passenger carrier, with United edging ahead of American into second place, and Southwest moving ahead of Northwest into fifth place. Korean Air's 13 per cent increase in freight tonne km means it has become the third biggest air freight carrier, after Federal Express and Lufthansa and ahead of UPS - whose freight tonne km within the US declined - and Air France. Among other changes in the freight stakes, Japan Airlines moves ahead of KLM, and British Airways moves up two places to ninth position.
Source: Airline Business
