Global air travel starts climbing

"We see strong growth among African, Asia-Pacific, Middle Eastern and Latin American airlines," IATA's chief executive Tony Tyler told journalists in Cape Town.

Middle Eastern airlines were the strongest performers, growing by 10%, followed by Asia-Pacific at 4.7% and Africa at 4.6%. Latin America grew by 2.8%.

Growth was more modest in Europe where demand increased by 2.2% and in North American the market rose a paltgry 0.6%. "The seasonally adjusted rate for April was almost 5%," Tyler said.

"The capacity was marginally ahead of demand at 4.4% , pushing the load factor downward by 0.9% to 78.1%. If adjusted for seasonality, this remained at near record highs of 80%," he added.

The international flight market was up 3% in April compared with the same period last year while capacity grew 4.3%. "North America was the only region to contract, shrinking by 0.5%, while the Middle East topped international demand with a rise of 10.9," he said.

Africa was the second-best performing region with traffic rising by 4.7% compared with the same period last year. IATA is due to hold its annual general meeting in Cape Town next week.

Source: AFP via I-Net Bridge