People in regions such as Europe and the Asia-Pacific forgot about their troubles and packed their old kit bags in November as demand for air travel reached its highest point in nine months.
Overall demand rose 7.6 per cent compared to the year before and airlines filled more seats and the load factor edged up almost a percentage point to 78.9 per cent, according to figures released Wednesday by the International Air Transport Association.
Global international passenger demand for the month rose 8 per cent, while worldwide domestic passenger demand — which tends to vary dramatically between countries — grew by 7.1 per cent.
Airlines also filled more seats in all regions.
Europeans took to international travel with gusto as demand increased 8.3 per cent and the annualised traffic growth for the past five months hit 12 per cent.
IATA said this suggested the disruption caused by terrorism and political instability had lifted “against a backdrop of a growing Eurozone economy’’. Planes travelling to and from Europe flew fuller with the region’s load factor climbing 1.1 percentage point to 80.8 per cent.
It was a similar story in the Asia-pacific, where international passenger traffic also rose 8.3 per cent compared to the previous year and the load factor rose 0.8 percentage points to 77.4 per cent.
“The strong upward trend in demand has slowed recently but it is not clear whether this is a longer-term development or just a brief pause,’’ IATA said.
Middle East carriers trumped the field with a 12.2 per cent increase in demand, but load factors were a modest 68.7 per cent and IATA said the region’s seasonally adjusted traffic trend had paused.
The slowest growth was in North America, where traffic climbed just 1.5 per cent but the load factor still edged up slightly to 78.7 per cent.
“Traffic across the pacific is growing rapidly but North Atlantic demand is moderating,’’ IATA said.
Latin America saw a 7.3 per cent rise in November traffic and the biggest climb in load factor for any region: 3.4 percentage points to 82.2 per cent. Africa was up 8.2 per cent with two thirds of seats full on average.
IATA director general Alexandre de Juniac said the stronger demand for air travel reflected a pick up in the global economic cycle and predicted this would play an increasing role as the stimulus of low oil prices receded.
“Travel has never been more accessible—with great fares, many options and more destinations,’’ he said. “Nevertheless, uncertainty lies ahead. The threat of terrorism, questions over the durability of the economic upswing, rising oil prices and increasing protectionist rhetoric are among the concerns.
“The industry has reshaped itself and strengthened its resilience to shocks. We should see another solid year of collective profitability for the airlines in 2017.’’
