By Jackie Thompson in London
Traffic growth in the first half continued at a healthy pace around the globe, apart from in North America where the mainline carriers are stripping capacity out of the domestic market
Figures for the first half of the year show that apart from European and North American majors, all sectors showed double-digit growth in traffic.
Overall traffic grew by 6.6%, while capacity increased by 4.0%, enabling load factors to rise by 1.9% to 77.8%. This is an increase of 3.5 percentage points on the same period the previous year.
IATA figures for international traffic over the year to May show traffic increases running ahead of capacity growth in all regions except Africa, where capacity growth of 9.1% outstripped traffic growth of 7.6%, resulting in load factors of 67.1%.
North American network carriers are taking significant capacity out of the domestic market as they concentrate instead on more lucrative international services. Traffic grew by just 2.1% as capacity dropped by 0.7%.
Traffic increases outstripped extra capacity in every sector apart from North American low-cost, where traffic growth of 18.9% lagged behind a capacity increase of 19.6%, resulting in a slight drop in load factors of 0.5 points.
SkyWest Airlines traffic rose by 117.4% over the same period in 2005, in large part due to its acquisition of Atlantic Southeast Airlines in the second half of the year. Capacity also doubled, lifting load factors to 78.8%, an increase of 4.5 percentage points.
In Latin America GOL continued its rapid growth, with traffic growing by more than half, up by 55.4%. However, capacity rose at almost exactly the same rate, so load factors increased by a mere 0.2 points to 73.4%. Overall the region posted an impressive traffic rise of 25.9%, excluding loss-making Varig. The troubled Brazilian flag carrier, now acquired by Volo, the owner of Varig's former cargo unit for $24 million, saw traffic dive by 24% and capacity by 22.2% as load factors fell by 1.7 points to 70.5%.
European low-cost and regionals posted some impressive traffic increases for the period, albeit from a low base. Scandinavian budget carrier Norwegian saw traffic surge 58% on a 50% increase in capacity, resulting in a 4.1 percentage point load factor improvement.
According to the Association of European Airlines, which represents mainline carriers, Far Eastern traffic rose by 12.3%, while capacity grew by 9.0% and intra-European traffic was up 6.6%, pushing load factors to 74.7%. North Atlantic traffic grew by just 0.6%, while capacity rose 1.2%, resulting in load factors that fell 0.5 points.
Figures from the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) show that traffic grew by 5.0%, while capacity rose 2.1%. This lifted load factors by 2.1 percentage points to 74%. "Traffic growth moderated slightly in May but the underlying trend remains fairly stable," says Andrew Herdman, AAPA's director general. ■
Source: Airline Business
