World’s airlines fill record number of seatsWorld’s airlines fill record number of seats

The world’s commercial airlines recorded a record high average load factor in August 2015.

According to the latest data from IATA, 84.7% of airline seats were filled on flights across the globe during the month, marking a new all-time high. Passenger traffic growth of 7.1% in August outpaced a 5.9% expansion of seat capacity, driving up load factors.

“August results continue the trend of strong demand for air travel, despite some softening in global economic growth, particularly in emerging markets,” said Tony Tyler, IATA’s director general & CEO.

“Airlines are committed to meeting growing demand sustainably. The record high load factor of 84.7% is a great indicator of improved efficiency – a 17 percentage point increase over the industry’s performance a decade ago,” he added.

Load factors on international routes averaged 85.2% in August, led by European airlines, which filled an impressive 88.3% of their seats. In North America, international load factors averaged 87.2%, while the figure was 82.5% in Asia Pacific. But Asia saw the strongest traffic growth of the three regions, rising 7.7%. This was only exceeded by the Middle East, which experienced a 13.7% jump in traffic in August, and load factors of 83.7%.

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Analysis by Mark Elliott

The aviation industry has been somewhat forced into improving its load factors in recent years, due to increasing fuel prices. With the industry’s margins so slim, maximising yield has become crucial. Airlines are now tightly managing their capacity in an effort to eke every last cent from a flight – operating a half-full plane simply isn’t economical. So for passengers, the days of being able to spread out on a nice empty row of seats may have already passed.

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Domestic load factors averaged 83.8%, driven by the US (87.1%) and China (84.0%). India’s domestic loads also remained high at 82.2%, but Japanese airlines continued to see a lot of empty seats, with average loads of just 69.3%.

Tyler concluded that while the global economic outlook is “decidedly mixed, demand for aviation connectivity remains strong”.

sourced:traveldailymedia.com