Medium-Term Passenger Traffic Forecasts

 

World Air Transport in 2012
(preliminary figures)

  
Some 2.9 billion people used air transport to help them realize their business and tourism needs in 2012. The annualized passenger figure is up 5 percent since 2011.
 
Total scheduled passenger traffic grew at a rate of 5.5 percent in terms of Revenue Passenger-Kilometres (RPK) in 2012, a one percentage point decrease compared to last year’s growth rate. This is a reflection of positive economic results worldwide, despite slow economic growth in some regions and the implementation of fiscal austerity policies in key European economies.
 
The Asia/Pacific region was the world’s largest air transport market in 2012, with a 30 percent share in terms of world RPKs. The Middle East region, accounting for 8 percent of the world RPKs, recorded the fastest growth rate at 16.8 percent in 2012 compared to 2011
 

World Passenger Traffic Forecasts

 
Medium term vision
 
Global traffic is projected to grow at higher rate in 2013 and 2014 than in 2012. The expected annual growth rates for 2013 and 2014 are 6.0 and 6.4 per cent respectively. Click here to view medium-term forecast tables.
 
During the forecast period the prevailing economic conditions will dictate the traffic growths on the world and regional basis. According to IHS/Global Insight, a major economic forecasting organization, the World GDP in real terms is projected to grow at about 4.0 per cent in 2013, a bit higher than 2012 which will translate into a slightly higher traffic growth. Among the regions, the EU economic problems are most likely to cause slower traffic growths in that region. During the forecast period the Asia/Pacific is expected to exhibit the strongest economic growth in respect of GDP growing over 6 per cent on the average annual basis. Similarly, the Africa and Latin America/Caribbean regions’ GDPs will grow at about 5 and 4 per cent, whereas, the Middle East, North America and Europe’s economies will show an average annual growth of 3.8, 2.6 and 1.6 per cent, respectively. With the world economic growth projected to improve gradually in the years 2013 and 2014, it will have a positive impact on the traffic.
 
Traffic growth will vary by geographic regions. For the period 2013 – 2014, the average annual growth rates in Revenue Passenger-Kilometres, are anticipated to range from a low of 3.3 per cent for the airlines of North America to a high of 10.6 per cent for the airlines of Middle East, compared to 6.2 per cent for the total world. In 2013, the airlines of North America are expected to experience slowest growth by about 3.1 per cent while the airlines of Middle East, Asia/Pacific and Latin America/ Caribbean would experience robust growths of 10.2, 8.6 and 7.7 per cent respectively. In 2014 the same traffic trends will continue with these regions exhibiting higher than world average growths whereas, the Europe and North America regions will continue to grow below the world average. The airlines of Europe are expected to grow at 4.4 and 4.8 per cent during 2013 and 2014, while those of North America will grow at 3.1 and 3.5 per cent, respectively.