IATA capacity warning

IATA warned last week of a possible downturn in airline business after load factors in February fell as the growth in capacity exceeded demand.

It was the first month since the middle of last year this had happened.

New figures from the association showed a 10% increase in capacity with load factor down 0.7% to 77.8%.

Outgoing director-general Tony Tyler said it was unclear whether the figures indicated the start of a general downward trend in load factor, but added: “It bears watching". 

European airlines saw demand rise 7.7% in February compared with a year ago, but capacity was up 7.8%, bringing load factors down by 0.1% to 78.3%.

The greatest increase in traffic was recorded by African airlines, which saw a rise of 12.7%. Capacity however soared by 13.4%, leading to a fall in load factors of 0.4% to 63.7%.

IATA said North America saw the slowest rise in traffic, which was up by only 3.6% while capacity increased by 4.8%, leading to a 0.9% drop in load factors to 75.9%.  www.iata.org

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