Global Analysis

The total number of scheduled flights operating in November this year increased 2% on a year over year basis to 2,479,543.  However, the seat capacity reported a greater increase of 4% compared to corresponding period last year.  This scenario reflects the sustained development of increasing average aircraft size as the key driver of seat capacity growth.  More Next Generation aircrafts with higher seat capacity are replacing the smaller seat capacity older models.  Average seat per frequency is recorded at 126 in November 2011 compared to 125 last year.

Regionally, ‘To/From Africa’, ‘Within North America’, and ‘Within Europe” are the only key regions that registered a decline in frequency of 6.0%, 2.7%, and 0.6% YOY respectively.  Africa is likely to see a continued trend of less departures on a year-over-year basis, due to increased political instability in several countries, which hampers both business and leisure travel demand. Within Central & South America remains the highest growth region at 10.8% YOY in frequency. Nevertheless, it is closely trailed by ‘Within Asia/Pacific region with 8.7% YOY growth. 

‘Within Central & South America’ achieved the highest capacity growth of 13.9% YOY, leaving the 2^nd  highest growth region, ‘Within Asia Pacific’, far behind with 8.0% y-o-y growth.  Similar to flight frequency development, both ‘To/From Africa’ and ‘Within North America’ are the only 2 regions with decline in seat capacity of 5.2% and 2.1% respectively. Contrary to ‘Within Europe’ decline in frequency, this showed a 1.3% growth in seats on a y-o-y basis.  Besides these 3 regions, ‘To/from Europe’ is the only other region that recorded growth rate lower than the worldwide frequency growth of 2.5%. One might conclude that the continued economic troubles in the United States and Europe will sustain lower seat and frequency growth rates compared to the worldwide average, for some time to come.

The intra-Asia Pacific region retains its leading position in total seat volumes, with nearly 96 million seats in November 2011, supported by an 8% YOY growth in seats, and 30.6% of the Worldwide Seat share.  Asia Pacific remains the biggest aviation market with 35.6% by combining both inter and intra Asia/Pacific market share of worldwide seat capacity.  Intra North America market is the 2^nd  highest seat volume region at 23%, but the region recorded a YOY decline of 2.1%.  Looking further back, comparing November 2002 data through November 2011 data, ‘To/from Africa’, ‘To/from Middle East’ and ‘Within Middle East’ are the only 3 regions that exceeded Asia Pacific’s average growth rate of 7.2%.

Source: OAG

Source: OAG

Low Cost

In November 2011, Low Cost Carriers have a worldwide schedule capacity share of 24%, a marginal 1% improvement from previous year, but a significant improvement from the 10% share recorded in year 2002.  In terms of frequency, Low Cost Carriers have a worldwide frequency of 20% and a significant growth since 8% frequency share recorded in November 2002.

Intra region, Europe still leads the world’s low cost market in terms of seat capacity.  But the European LCC market is saturated, which can be observed through the low growth rate.  Europe and North America are the only 2 intra regions that recorded YOY growth below 10% in terms of seat capacity.

Europe recorded a low growth on intra region low cost seat volume, while inter-region LCC seat volume fell rather substantially.  While North America has a low intra region YOY growth, it leads in YOY growth inter-region in seat volume.  The Middle East recorded the second highest inter-region growth rate as the only region with nearly 20% inter-region YOY growth. This is followed closely by Central & South America and Asia Pacific who recorded 18.5% and 17.1%annual growth respectively.

Major Hub Airports

The world’s busiest airport (by passenger traffic), Atlanta, saw a 3% decline in schedule frequency and 1% decline in seat capacity.  Beijing, second in passenger traffic volume is catching up with 1% and 3%

YOY growth with schedule frequency and seat capacity respectively.  London Heathrow remains ranked 3^rd  busiest passenger airport in the world with a marginal decrease in schedule frequency, but recorded a marginal increase in seat capacity. 

Based on annual growth rate of seat capacity among the world’s key hub airports in November 2011, Tirana (TIA) recorded the highest growth rate of 65%, followed by Mexico City (38%) and Tallinn (37%).  Tripoli suffered the biggest YOY decline in seat capacity of 93%.  Based on absolute numbers, Istanbul sustained its aggressive growth with an additional 917,315 seats added compare to the corresponding period last year. Within the top 10 ranking by incremental number of seats, South East Asia key hubs commanded 4 spots, well represented by Jakarta, Manila, Singapore Changi and Kuala Lumpur.  Including Delhi and Hong Kong, the mammoth incremental 2.995 million seats in these 6 airports is a strong testimonial that Asia Pacific is the main driver of aviation growth.

In terms of schedule frequency, Tirana Airport achieved the highest growth rate of 57% YOY, followed by Montevideo (50%) and Islamabad (45%).  Tripoli also recorded the highest decline in schedule frequency.

Regional Analysis

Africa:

Seat availability in November 2011 for the African region, both intra and To/From combined, decreased by 1.7% YOY.  The scheduled frequency increased by 0.8% compared to same month last year.  This has reflected the frequency growth that has been generated by narrow-body fleets within the African region.  Between the sub regions, North Africa continues to hold the majority of the regional market.  However, North Africa is the only sub region that recorded a decline in both intra and inter-region statistics, and it applies to both schedule frequency and seat volume as well.  Besides the decline in North Africa, the only sub region that recorded a decline is inter-region traffic to/from Central/Western Africa, which shed 3.6% in frequency and decreased by 2.5% in seat capacity.  On the contrary, the continued growth in the overall African region is well contributed by Intra Eastern Africa sub region.  Intra Eastern Africa posted a strong y-o-y growth of 26.6% in frequency, and the corresponding seat capacity growth of 14.6% improvement YOY. 

Over the last 5 years, since year 2006, intra Africa schedule frequency in November has increased 36.4%, supported by 33.5% additional seats over the same period.  The seat volume To/From Africa has observed even greater growth of 50.3% over the last 5 years, contributed by the 48.9% increment in frequency.

London & Paris are the top inter-continental routes from African region, with more than 1.2 million seats monthly.

North America

Intra North America market remains pessimistic with marginal decline on schedule frequency (-2.7% YOY) and seat capacity (-2.1% YOY).  Nevertheless, the 4.8% YOY increase to schedule frequency To/From North America is well supported by the corresponding 2.5% gain in seat capacity.

The previous chart showed that low cost seats within North America are driving the growth within the region as network carriers’ seat capacity on the declining trend.

Asia Pacific and North America Airports

Referring to the chart above, China remains the biggest contributor to the strong improvement of 24% growth over the past 7 years from the major Asia Pacific airports.  Shanghai recorded 130% increase in seat capacity to North America over the past 7 years, followed by Beijing’s 81% increase.  Singapore recorded the biggest decline compared to seat capacity offered in November 2005.

The seat capacity between Asia Pacific and the 3 major hub airports in North America are consistently increasing albeit marginally since rebound from the decline in 2009. 

Asia Pacific

Frequencies and seat capacity to/from Asia Pacific has increased by 8% and 7% respectively. Within the Asia/Pacific, an additional 50,892 more flights and 7,127,525 more seats will be made available in November 2011 compared to the same month in 2010. This is an increase of 9% for schedule frequency and 8% for seats.  Much of this growth can be attributed to secondary markets in major Asian countries growing at comparatively fast rates, driven by Asian-based operators.

Domestic capacity in Mainland China grew by 10% YOY.  China’s international capacity has seen an even sharper increase of 12%. Compared to November 2010, November 2011 will have additional 845,307 international seats.

Seat capacity within Southwest Pacific is the only sub region that recorded a decline from 2010-2011 in November, albeit marginally below 1%.  In terms of schedule frequency, Within Southwest Pacific registered a 0.8% decline.  Within South Asia recorded the highest growth in frequency at 16%, and seat capacity To/From Central Asia was the highest growth at 16%.

The healthy development trend in Tokyo Haneda hub airport is expected to continue, and will see major spike increment when the authorities release more runway slots moving forward. 

Europe

Schedule frequency and seat capacity To/From Europe registered a marginal growth under 1% and 2% respectively on a YOY growth in November.  Within Europe, seat capacity YOY growth was 1% with a decline of 1% of growth registered in schedule frequency.

To/From Eastern Europe (excluding Russia) registered the highest seat capacity growth as well as schedule frequency growth.

All three sub regions in Europe registered consistent growth over the last 6 years, except for marginal decline from 2007 through 2009.

Consultant Review

China continues to exhibit strong growth, as has been the case for some time now.  China’s largest carriers, China Southern, China Eastern, Air China, Xiamen Airlines, Shenzhen Airlines and Hainan Airlines have all shown growth in departures domestically and internationally year-over-year, and this trend is likely to continue well into 2012. 

OAG FACTS uses interactive graphs to display a 10-year visual trend of the performance of a specific airport, route, country or region. It is updated monthly.

Printer friendly version:   OAG FACTS Executive Summary November 2011