Middle East air travel marks growth: IATA

Recent statistics reported by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) stated that emerging markets were the strongest performers, particularly the Middle East (11.0%) and Africa (10.8%).

he overall growth year-on-year was 6.0% in terms of passenger demand. This growth was fuelled with positive performance from Asia-Pacific airlines which were responsible for half of the increase in RPKs from May to June. The European airlines also reported a second consecutive month of growth with 4.8%.

“Growth in the BRICS economies, including China, is slowing. And oil prices remain high. The industry is still on track to make US$4.00 per passenger this year for a global net profit of US$12.7 billion. But there is little margin for error and even a small change in the second half of the year could shift the outlook significantly,” said Tony Tyler, IATA’s director general and CEO.

International air travel expanded strongly, up by 5.9% in June compared to a year ago. June capacity grew in line with this (5.7%) resulting in a June international load factor of 81.4%. Middle East carriers expanded 12.1% compared to a year ago. This was slightly below the 13.4% capacity expansion resulting in a load factor of 78.4%. The demand for new routes to emerging markets in Africa and Asia has fuelled the growth of the Gulf hubs.

African airlines benefitted from strong domestic economic growth in key markets such as Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, to post growth of 11.2%. Although African airlines’ load factors (70.7%) still lag the global average by around 10%, they have made consistent progress to close the gap this year, and in June, improved their load factor by almost three percentage points compared to June 2012.