The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is expecting passenger travel demand to weaken in the final months of 2011.
“With business and consumer confidence now tanking, sluggishness in international trade, and high fuel prices, the expectation is for a weaker end to the year.
“We are already seeing this in the shrinking air freight markets, which were 0.4% down on the previous year,†said Tony Tyler, IATA’s director general and CEO.
IATA traffic results for July showed that passenger travel bucked the gloomy economic outlook with a 5.9% increase.
Asia-Pacific carriers had a capacity increase of 5.8% ahead of demand growth of 4.9%.
Airlines in the Asia Pacific region are still adjusting to two major challenges: slower growth in China and continuing post-earthquake/tsunami weakness in Japan. Load factors fell slightly to 80.2%, IATA reported.
