Hot Growth Areas include Low Cost Sectors in Beijing, Middle East, Africa and Latin America

Global airline capacity for October 2009 is showing positive growth of 1.04% compared to October 2008, down slightly from September’s growth of 1.4%, 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 299.9 million seats available this month, a rise of 1.04% (3,091,580 more seats) over October 2008 levels.

David Beckerman, vice president OAG Market Intelligence, said, “We’re seeing continued growth in global capacity even with slight decreases in frequency across Europe and North America as we go into fall, which would tend to indicate a trend towards re-evaluating less popular routes. ”

Frequencies are marginally down compared to October 2008. The world’s airlines have scheduled 2.4 million flights for October 2009, down by 1% (24,445 fewer flights) compared with the same month last year.   Last month, the year on year global frequency figure was down by 0.6% and capacity was up by 1.4%.

The low cost sector is slowing in growth as a whole however; growth is strong in the Middle East with 12% more flights, Latin America with 54% International and 48% domestic capacity growth, and Africa with 9% increase in flights.

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

When looking at the global figure of all scheduled passenger flight operations below, the Low Cost sector accounts for 452,104 flights (18.6%) and 67.3 million seats (22.4%). Worldwide, frequencies and capacity in the Low Cost sector are up by 5.3% and 5.6% respectively, compared to a year ago. When this is analyzed by region, there is significant growth to/from both Africa (9% increase in flights and 10% growth in seats) and the Middle East (12% more flights and 11% increase in seats). Within Central & South America there is 11% growth in available seats while within the Middle East there is a 20% increase in available seats and an 18% increase in flights.

Analysis by Region:
International services to and from Europe are down compared to October 2008, with 1.4% fewer flights and 1.1% fewer seats. Flight schedules within the region are also declining year on year, with 6% (40,243) fewer flights and 4% (2.8 million) fewer seats.

Flight volumes within North America are showing a 4% drop in frequencies (31,691 fewer flights) and in seat capacity showing a 5% decline (3.5 million fewer seats), while international frequencies and capacity to and from the region show declines of 4%. 

Analysis of all hubs reveals that capacity is increasing 10% (718,859 more seats) into and out of Beijing airport while the number of arrivals and departures is increasing by 11% with 3,968 more flights scheduled to operate than in October 2008.

Latin America continues to experience growth in air service within the region, with a moderate rise of 3% in frequencies (4,785 more flights) and 11% in capacity (2.07 million more seats).  Operations to and from Central and South America are up by 0.5% and capacity is up 0.4% year on year. The low cost sector especially is seeing healthy capacity growth of 48% within the region and 54% to and from Central and South America. 

Figures for Asia show a contrast between services within, and to/from the region. Intra-regionally, frequencies are up by 6% (33,076 more flights) compared with October 2008, with a rise of 7% in capacity (5.6 million more seats).  For services to and from the region, there is a 1.2% drop in capacity on 1.9% fewer flights.  

The Middle East region continues to enjoy an upward trend. Flights and capacity for travel to and from the region are up by 12% and 11% respectively, representing an additional 5,154 more flights and 1.1 million more seats than in October 2008, while the number of flights and seats offered within the region are up by 18% (6,275 more flights) and 20% (1.09 million more seats) respectively.

Africa also is experiencing good growth.  Flights to and from Africa are up by 9% (2,997 more flights) with a 10% rise in capacity of over 606,000 seats.  Air service within the region is showing an upturn year on year with a 3% rise in the volume of flights and 6% more seat capacity.

Analysis by Major Routes
Air service for October on the key long-haul routes continues to show nice growth.  The OAG figures between Western Europe and the Middle East, and between Western Europe and Africa, shows an upturn in capacity of 14% (411,000 more seats) and 10% (399,000 more seats), respectively compared with October 2008. 

The transatlantic market between North America and Western Europe shows a 10% fall in capacity year on year, representing 661,000 fewer seats.  Frequencies are down 12%, representing 3,075 fewer transatlantic flights for the month.

Services between North America and Central/South America are relatively stable compared to a year ago, with just 0.3% more flights and 0.3% less capacity between the regions.

Airlines operating transpacific routes are scheduled to offer 131,000 fewer seats this month than a year ago, a drop of 4%, while carriers flying between Western Europe and Asia are cutting capacity by 8% (320,000 fewer seats).

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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.