Middle East carriers experienced the strongest traffic growth for any region at 15.6% year-over-year, with a 14.2% rise in capacity that boosted load factor one percentage point to 79.7%. While a smaller share of international air travel (13.4%) they have carried about 20% of the increase in demand over the past six months.
Latin American airlines also experienced very strong growth, with March demand up 11.8%, second highest among all regions, reflecting the better performance of the region’s economies. Capacity, however, climbed 13.3% year-over-year and load factor declined one percentage point to 76.9%. The region was the only one to experience a decline in load factor.
African airlines’ traffic climbed 8.2% in March, while capacity rose 5.7%, pushing load factor up to 67.8%, still the lowest for any region. Although traffic declined 1.1% compared to February, the region is seeing solid growth
North American airlines’ international traffic rose 2.4% year-on-year in March (after rising just 0.3% in February). This was the slowest rise among the regions, in part owing to a 0.9% reduction in capacity. Load factor rose 2.6 percentage points to 83%, the highest for any region. Although the underlying growth trend has been improving for several months, recent months have seen considerable volatility in the data and some indication of weakness. The ongoing cuts in US federal spending (sequestration) could eventually impact economic growth and ultimately consumer spending