Growth of 1.4% compared to September 2008

Global airline capacity for September 2009 is showing positive growth for the second consecutive month, reports OAG, (www.oagaviation.com), the world’s leading aviation data business, as it releases its monthly report on trends in the supply of airline flights and seats.  The world’s airlines have scheduled 296.9 million seats, a rise of 1.4% (4,130,744 more seats) over September 2008 levels.

David Beckerman, vice president OAG Market Intelligence, said, “As the summer season winds down, the steady upward trend we have seen since May is continuing. After 11 straight months of capacity cutbacks, these figures indicate a growing confidence within the industry that demand for air travel is starting to pick up.”

Frequencies are marginally down compared to September 2008.  The world’s airlines have scheduled a total of 2.4 million flights for September 2009, down by 0.6% (14,321 fewer flights) compared with the same month last year. Last month, the year on year global frequency figure was down by 2% and capacity was up by 0.2%.

The figures are revealed in the September 2009 edition of OAG FACTS (Frequency & Capacity Trend Statistics), the dynamic monthly market intelligence tool providing the latest data on current passenger airline activity around the world.  

The month by month trend since the start of the economic downturn can be seen in the chart above.

When looking at the global figure of all scheduled passenger flight operations below, the Low Cost sector accounts for 442,161 flights (18.4%) and 65.9 million seats (22.2%).  Worldwide, frequencies and capacity in the Low Cost sector are up by 6% compared to a year ago.  When this is analyzed by region, there is vigorous growth to/from and within all regions with the exception of low cost services within Europe (2% fewer flights and 1% fewer seats) and within North America (8% fewer flights and 9% fewer seats).

Analysis by Region:
International services to and from Europe are down compared to September 2008, with 3% fewer flights and 2% fewer seats. Flight schedules within the region are also declining year on year, with 6% (36,304) fewer flights and 3% (2.6 million) fewer seats.

Flight volumes within North America are showing some improvement over recent months, with a 4% drop in frequencies (35,448 fewer flights) and seat capacity showing a 5% decline (4.01 million fewer seats), while international frequencies and capacity to and from the region also are somewhat improved with declines of 4% and 5% respectively. 

Analysis of all hubs reveals that there are capacity cuts of 3% (239,768 fewer seats) into and out of Atlanta Hartsfield airport while the number of arrivals and departures is increasing by 3% with 1,998 more flights scheduled to operate than in September 2008.

Latin America continues to experience growth in air service within the region, with a rise of 4% in frequencies (6,340 more flights) and 10% in capacity (1.73 million more seats).  The low cost sector especially is seeing healthy capacity growth of 49% within the region and 51% to and from Central and South America.

Operations to and from Central and South America, however, are down by 1% and capacity is down 2% year on year.

Figures for Asia also show a contrast between services within, and to/from the region. Intra-regionally, frequencies are up by 8% (42,533 more flights) compared with September 2008, with a rise of 10% in capacity (7.5 million more seats). For services to and from the region, there is a 1% drop in capacity on 2% fewer flights.

The Middle East region continues to enjoy a steady upward trend. Flights and capacity for travel to and from the region are up by 13% and 14% respectively, representing an additional 5,380 more flights and 1.3 million more seats than in September 2008, while the number of flights and seats offered within the region are up by 18% (6,086 more flights) and 20% (1.07 million more seats) respectively.

Africa also is experiencing good growth.  Flights to and from Africa are up by 9% (2,966 more flights) with an 11% rise in capacity of over 706,000 more seats.  Air service within the region is showing an upturn year on year with a 3% rise in the volume of flights and 4% more seat capacity.

Analysis by Major Routes
Air service for September on the key long-haul routes continues to follow a similar pattern to recent months. The OAG figures show continued growth between Western Europe and the Middle East, and between Western Europe and Africa, with upturns in capacity of 13% (370,000 more seats) and 8% (320,000 more seats) respectively compared with September 2008. 

The transatlantic market between North America and Western Europe shows a 9% fall in capacity year on year, representing 664,000 fewer seats.  Frequencies are down 11%, representing 3,138 fewer transatlantic flights for the month.

Services between North America and Central/South America are relatively stable compared to a year ago, with just 0.5% fewer flights and 2% less capacity between the regions.

Airlines operating transpacific routes are scheduled to offer 274,000 fewer seats this month than a year ago, a drop of 8%.  San Francisco has 84,000 fewer seats (-16%) on offer to and from Asia Pacific than a year ago, while Hong Kong and Tokyo airports are showing downturns of 62,000 (-16%) and 60,000 (-6%) seats to and from North America.

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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.