Disaster in Japan, war in Africa shrink travel in March

Manila Bulletin
May 5, 2011
By EMMIE V. ABADILLA

MANILA, Philippines — Japan’s earthquake and tsunami plus political strife in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) brought down global passenger demand 2 percent year-on-year, from 5.8% in February to 3.8% in March, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) reported.

Conversely, year-on-year growth in freight markets rebounded from 1.8% to 3.7% in the same period. Overall, global passenger demand fell 0.3% in March, while cargo demand expanded 4.5%.

The impact of the events in Japan on global international traffic was a 1% loss of traffic in March, confirmed Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO.

Asia-Pacific carriers experienced over 2% traffic loss, North American carriers had a 1% drop and Europe’s carriers a 0.5% fall. Japan’s domestic market was most severely affected, with a 22% fall in demand.

On the other hand, political unrest in MENA cut international travel by 0.9 percentage points. Egypt and Tunisia experienced traffic levels 10-25% below normal for March. Military action in Libya virtually stopped civil aviation to, from and within that country.

Capacity adjustments lagged behind the sudden drop in demand. Against global demand growth of 3.8%, capacity expanded by 8.6%. The average load factor fell by 3.5 percentage points to 74.6%.

Except for Japan, long-haul business travel remained strong but weak economic prospects continue to dampen intra-European traffic.

Still, compared to the previous year, Asia-Pacific carriers experienced flat passenger demand. Compared to February however demand contracted by 2.2% while 0.8% was added to capacity. This led to a sharp 2.3 percentage point fall in load factors to 74.2% in March.

Middle East carriers saw year-on-year demand growth fall from 8.3% in February to 5.6% in March. Compared to February, demand inched up 0.1% while capacity expanded by 0.8%. This pushed the load factor down 0.6 percentage points to 73.2%.

Europe’s carriers saw demand levels of 5.3% above March 2010, down from the 7.4% year-on-year growth in February. Compared to February levels, Europe’s carriers added 0.5% to capacity but experienced zero demand growth.

This pushed load factors down by 0.3 percentage points to 75.3%.

North American carriers saw a 3.7% year-on-year improvement in demand in March. This was a 3 percentage point tumble from the 6.7% growth recorded in February. Compared to February levels, demand dropped 0.9% while capacity was up 0.3%. This led to a 0.9 percentage point drop in load factors from their February levels to 76.9%.