OAG publishes airline figures for May

OAG (Official Airline Guide) executive summary for May reports that that airlines worldwide will operate 5% less flights as compared to May 2008 with seat capacity reduced by 3% for the same period.  Yet again, the biggest contributor to this decline in frequency is within North America amounting to 9% drop as compared to last year.  Seat capacity is down by 8%.  To and from the US and Canada the figure is 6% for both.  Within Europe, as compared to May 2008 the frequency and capacity declined by 8% and 6% respectively.  The Middle East region continues to grow and reflects a big upward trend again this month with a rise of  27% and 24% respectively.  However in true perspective it only represents 10% of the North America total.  The number of passengers passing through European airports fell 12.4% in the first quarter of 2009 and freight traffic was down 23.1% ACI Europe reported.  It is only at the end of the month, when the actual load factors are published by the airlines,  will it be possible to see whether they have been able to match frequency against capacity, the real telling figure. www.oag.com

Index/Home page
 

OUR READERS' FINEST WORDS (All times and dates are GMT)

All comments are filtered to exclude any excesses but the Editor does not have to agree with what is being said. 100 words maximum