Thursday, September 24, 2009

Global Airline Capacity Up Slightly in September

Global airline capacity for September shows positive growth for the second consecutive month, according to OAG, the leading aviation data business.

Airlines scheduled 296.9 million seats, a rise of 1.4% (4,130,744 more seats) over September 2008 levels, OAG says.

Says David Beckerman, vice president of OAG Market Intelligence: "As the summer season winds down, the steady upward trend we have seen since May is continuing. After 11 straight months of capacity cutbacks, these figures indicate a growing confidence within the industry that demand for air travel is starting to pick up."

[My comment: Fare sales have something to do with that, but there is no doubt that more people are feeling the urge or need to travel again. There has been a definite uptick in business travel demand.]

OAG says that airlines scheduled 2.4 million flights, down 0.6% (14,321 fewer flights) compared with Sept. 2008. Last month, total flights were down 2% and capacity was up 0.2%.

The month-by-month trend since the start of the economic downturn can be seen here.

###

No comments: