Analysis by Region
The volume of flights within North America has dropped by 8.7% (81,000 flights), with a capacity reduction of 7.7% (6.53 million seats).  Traffic to and from the region is showing a similar pattern, with a fall in both frequencies and capacity of 8.3% (7,800 fewer flights) and 6.6% (1.2 million fewer seats) respectively.

Latin America also is experiencing significant cutbacks in airline service. Intra-regionally, this month's figures show a decline of 7,266 fewer flights (down 3.8%) offering 379,800 fewer seats (down 2%).  For service into and out of the region, the figures are higher, with an 8.5% decline in flight volumes and 5.2% less capacity, representing more than 500,000 fewer seats.

Asia is holding up much better with a slight decline of 1.3% in intra-regional services (a downturn of 6,897 flights) and just 116 fewer flights to/from the region (down by 0.2%) compared with March 2008.  Capacity figures reveal a marginal reduction of 0.6% in seat offerings to/from the region, and a welcome boost of 0.6% in scheduled capacity within Asia of 500,330 more seats.

Europe continues to see sharp cutbacks both within and to/from the region, with declines in frequencies of 4.1% (23,600 fewer flights) and 3.1% (2,845 fewer flights) respectively.  The capacity counts also show a reduction of 4.3% (2.9 million seats) on intra-regional flights and 2.8% (588,200 seats) on routes to and from outside Europe.

The Middle East is bucking the global trend with comparatively healthy growth. There is a 4% increase in intra-regional flights (1,415 additional scheduled services) with 96,600 more seat capacity (up by 1.8%), and a hefty 14% rise in frequencies and capacity to/from the region, with 5,438 more flights offering 1.18 million more seats for March 2009 compared to March 2008.

Africa remains fairly stable compared with this time last year. Intra-regional services have increased by 0.3% (196 more flights) offering 46,538 more seats, a rise of 0.8%.  Traffic to/from the region is marginally down, with a 0.4% decrease (136 fewer flights) and 0.6% fewer seats on offer.

Analysis by Country – Highlights: 
Within the United States this month, domestic airline activity has dropped 9.2% overall, or 76,164 fewer flights, resulting in 6.5 million fewer seats. The U.S. low cost sector is showing a year-on-year decrease for the month of just over 9% for both frequencies and capacity.

Top ranking countries by cutbacks:

• Domestic frequencies = United States (-76,164 flights) followed by Mexico (-6,154 flights)
  
  
• International frequencies = United Kingdom (-9,920 flights) followed by Spain (-9,452 flights)
  
  
• Domestic capacity = United States (-6,534,701 seats) followed by Indonesia (-745,962 seats)
  
  
• International capacity = United Kingdom (-1,673,347 seats) followed by Spain (-1,509,754 fewer seats)
  
  

Top ranking countries by growth:

• Domestic frequencies = China (+14,483 flights) followed by Colombia (+4,109 flights)
  
  
• International frequencies = Turkey (+3,330 flights) followed by United Arab Emirates (+3,050 flights)
  
  
• Domestic capacity = China (+2,422,355 seats) followed by Japan (+721,170 seats)
  
  
• International capacity = United Arab Emirates (+677,771 seats) followed by Turkey (+606,215 seats).
  
  

Analysis by Airport – Highlights:

The Airport with highest capacity cut for March 2009 compared to March 2008 is Las Vegas McCarran, with a downturn of 679,592 seats (down by 13.8%).  When the figures are analysed by volume of cutbacks in scheduled service operations, Los Angeles has the largest decline of 6,726 flights (down by 13.6%).

In terms of growth, Beijing Airport has the highest growth in scheduled service for this month, with an additional 7,976 flights (up by 26.2%) and over 1.3 million more seats (up by 22.5%).

Analysis by Major Routes
The OAG figures for March reveal a continuing slowdown in the global figures and on the key long-haul routes between North America and hubs in Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America.
Activity between North America and Asia Pacific is down by the largest margin, at 10.3%, or 999 fewer flights. The only major intra-regional route showing growth is for flights between Western Europe and the Middle East, which is up by 11.4%, or 1,383 additional flights this month compared with March 2008.

OAG FACTS enables you to see trends at-a-glance. An easy to use tool providing the latest data on current airline activity around the world. Updated monthly, it uses interactive graphs to display a visual trend of the performance of a specific airport, route, country or region from 2001 - 2009.