Asia-Pacific held on to the top spot for traffic and capacity growth in 2007, but the Americas showed signs of action
Capacity growth was robust in all regions last year and the Asia-Pacific once again led the pack, with the Asian carriers in this Airline Business sample posting a 5.8% gain. The Americas added less capacity than Asia and Europe but the figure was higher than in previous years at 3.4%, and load factors remained relatively steady at 79.6%.
Among the US carriers, Allegiant Air posted the strongest capacity growth and saw its load factor rise by 2.9 percentage points. In Brazil Gol and TAM added a significant amount of capacity, which more than made up for the decline at Varig.
Asia-Pacific's capacity growth was led by India's Jet Airways, although Australia's Qantas led the way on load factor improvement with a 3.9 percentage point increase to 80.9%.
In Europe, airBaltic posted the biggest traffic and capacity gains as it underwent expansion.
Source: Airline Business
