IATA Annual Review 2012

Strong business travel kept
premium seat growth ahead
of economy seat growth.
A sign of buoyant air travel
markets in 2011 was the
growth in the sale of first- and
business-class seats, which
expanded 5.5% on international
markets compared with the
growth in economy seat sales
of 5.1%. This, however, was not
apparent in all markets. Within
Europe, where distances are
relatively short, there has been
a structural shift away from
premium seats, resulting in
the faster growth of economy
travel. On the important
transatlantic and transpacific
markets, though, premium travel
continued to grow substantially
faster than economy travel.
This reflected the continuation
of business travel growth
in most regions and the lull in
leisure travel in many developed
economies because of weak
consumer confidence.
Goods worth over $5 trillion
were transported by air in
2011, but air cargo volumes
slipped slightly.
After an exceptionally strong
rebound in 2010, air freight
metric ton kilometers flown fell
0.4% worldwide in 2011. The
air freight market is no bigger
than it was four years ago.
Since air freight volumes have
on average grown from 5% to
6% a year over the past 20 to
30 years, growth in the past
four years has been exceptionally
weak. Even so, with the estimated
value of world trade at
more than $16 trillion in 2011
airlines were still responsible
for carrying more than $5 trillion
worth of the world economy’s
internationally traded goods.
International passengers by seat class
(source: IATA)
12
Airline load factors exceeded
78%, close to historic highs,
and the fleet continued to expand,
with 1,268 new aircraft
delivered.
Worldwide passenger capacity
accelerated in 2011, growing
6.6% as measured by available
passenger kilometers in international
and domestic markets.
That exceeds the expansion of
4% in 2010.
There was a substantial difference
between domestic and international
markets. In domestic
markets, slightly less capacity
was added than growth in the
market: 4.0% versus 4.1%. The
opposite prevailed in international
markets, where the pace
of capacity expansion was in
excess of the expansion of
demand: 8.1% versus 6.9%.
But the excess of capacity
growth was not too large, and
so load factors remained close
to historic highs in 2011, with
a worldwide average of 78.3%.
Domestic markets saw load
factors rise even further, to a
new high of 79.6%. This was
an important factor leading to
stronger airline profitability in
the US and Chinese domestic
markets in 2011.
The delivery of new aircraft
picked up in 2011, with 1,268
new aircraft delivered to
airlines. Taking into account
aircraft retirements, which typically
involve around 400 to 500
aircraft, hull losses because
of accidents, and movements
in and out of storage, the inservice
fleet of the commercial
airline industry expanded 763
aircraft to 24,605 aircraft by
year-end 2011.
Passenger and cargo load factors
(source: IATA)