Global passenger traffic suffered from the effects of the tsunami in Japan and political unrest in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in March, dropping 0.3% on last year, but freight continued to rebound, with demand up 3.7%, according to IATA.
The impact of the events in Japan on global international traffic was a 1% loss of traffic in March. Looked at regionally, Asia-Pacific carriers saw a traffic loss of over 2%, North American carriers had a 1% drop and Europe's carriers a 0.5% fall. Japan's domestic market was the most severely impacted with a 22% fall in demand.
From the second half of 2010 until January 2011, international air freight expanded in tandem with the growth in world trade at an annualised rate of about 10%. This was dented in February 2011 when growth, for a number of factors, fell to 1.8% over the same month in the previous year. The 3.7% year-on-year increase in March reflects more normal trading conditions (outside of Japan and MENA) during the month.
Regional passenger demand
o African carriers saw a -7% drop in demand compared with last March, although capacity increased by +6.5% compared with February.
o Demand on European carriers grew by +5.4% in March, down from -7.4% in February, while capacity remained flat. North American carriers saw a +3.7% increase, down from 6.7% in February.
o In the Asia-Pacific region, normally a strongly performing market, demand was flat and down -2.2% from February.
o The region with the strongest increase in passenger demand were Latin America (+22.2%), despite being severely depressed by the earthquake in Chile in February.
Regional freight demand
o Asia-Pacific carriers, which account for 43% of total freight traffic, saw demand drop by 0.6% in March compared with the same period in 2010.
o European and North American carriers saw demand increase 6.1% and 7.1% respectively compared with March 2010.
o Middle East and Latin American carriers reported increased of 10.1% and 10.4% respectively in March, compared with last year.
o African carriers reported the worst performance, with a -2.8% fall in demand.
