European Airline Traffic Sees Increase In 97

Major European airlines carried almost 15 million more passengers in 1997 on international scheduled flights despite increased competition from new rivals, the Association of European Airlines (AEA) said last week. AEA said its 26-member airlines, mostly flag carriers, carried 162.7 million passengers on such flights compared with 147.9 million in 1996.

The strength of demand on the AEA airlines European services stands out, especially in the face of increased competition from newcomers to the liberalised market, said the AEA secretary general Karl-Heinz Neumeister. In passenger-per-kilometre terms, the increase was 9.7 per cent, the AEA said. Following an 8.1 per cent increase in 1996, it is evident that the industry is in a sustained high-growth phase, the AEA said. Unusually traffic within Europe had a growth rate above the average at 10.2 per cent.

 

Traffic on Far East Asia and Australia routes rose by nine per cent. AEA indicated that Asian financial crisis had had an impact towards the end of the year on this area of the market. While this was by no means a disappointing figure overall, it is noteworthy that the growth rate slipped from 10.5 per cent for the 8 months to August to between7 and 7.5 per cent in Sept-Nov, and to only 3.3 per cent in December.

No AEA official was available to comment further on this aspect. Roughly one percentage point of growth on Far Eastern routes is worth about $6 million per month in passenger revenue for the Association of European Airlinesairlines as a whole, the association said. The strong overall growth in 1997 also boosted the passenger load factor to a new record level, with 72.4 per cent of seats filled in 1997, two percentage points more than in 1996.