Fall in business confidence slows global air travel, freight traffic – IATA

Global air traffic growth slowed in both air travel and freight during July 2012, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced August 30, 2012 in its global traffic results.

According to IATA, July 2012 passenger demand in aggregate was 3.4% higher than the same month last year, compared to a 6.3% increase in June and average growth of 6.5% over the first half of the year.

The association attributed the slowdown in travel growth to the recent “fall in business confidence” in many economies.

Freight demand in July was also 3.2% lower than it was in the same month last year. This is down on the 0.1% year-on-year growth rate of June, according to IATA’s results adding that “a large part of that decline was due to a comparison with a relatively strong July last year, but overall the trend in air freight is weak, in line with subdued world trade growth.”

“The uncertain economic outlook is having a negative impact on demand for air transport,” said Tony Tyler, IATA’s Director General.

But African airlines’ traffic climbed 5.2% year-on-year, below a 6.3% rise in capacity. The report showed that Load factor was 73.1%, by far the lowest of any region.

The continent’s airlines have seen strong growth of 10.8% on average during the first half of the year, IATA said indicating that “this has partly been a rebound from the Arab Spring, but also reflects the relative success of many African economies at present”.

By Ekow Quandzie

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