Airlines in Europe are experiencing "profitless growth" as they struggle to manage high fixed costs and taxes, the international airline association IATA today.
While airlines in China, Latin America and the Middle East are seeing strong growth, demand in Europe weakened in the second quarter of the year.
Global traffic results for September show passenger demand in September was 4.1% up on September 2011, but this was down on the 6% growth rate seen throughout the first half of the year.
Capacity in September increased by 3.1% over the same period of last year and the average load factor was 80%, slightly up on September 2011.
"A two-speed recovery is emerging into a multi-speed reality," said IATA director general Tony Tyler. "Carriers in China, Latin America and the Middle East are growing strongly. Europe’s airlines are experiencing profitless growth in a strategy to manage high fixed costs and taxes.
"The fact that airlines are making any money at all with weak markets and high fuel prices is a tribute to their strong business performance, as evidenced by maintaining global load factors close to 80% since the start of 2012.
"Even with that, airlines are expected to eke out a global net profit margin of only 0.6%. It’s a tough year."
