Lower fares push international air travel up 6.5% in 2015

International air travel rose 6.5% in 2015 – the annual biggest increase since the global financial crisis rebound in 2010.

Latest International Air Transport Association (IATA) says this is also well above the 10-year average annual growth rate of 5.5%.

Passenger demand was boosted by lower airfares, it adds, saying after adjusting for distortions caused by the rise of the US dollar, global airfares were approximately 5% lower than in 2014.

Annual capacity rose 5.6% last year, with the result that load factor climbed 0.6 percentage points to a record annual high of 80.3%.

“Last year’s very strong performance, against a weaker economic backdrop, confirms the strong demand for aviation connectivity. But even as the appetite for air travel increased, consumers benefitted from lower fares compared to 2014,” says Tony Tyler, IATA’s director-general and chief executive.

Regional performance
Carriers in the Asia-Pacific region accounted for one-third of the total annual increase in traffic with an 8.2% rise. Demand was stimulated by a 7.3% increase in the number of direct airport connections. Capacity rose 6.4%, pushing up load factor 1.3 percentage points to 78.2%.

The strongest annual traffic growth occurred in the Middle East at 10.5%. As a result, the region’s share of international traffic reached 14.2%, surpassing the North American airlines at 13.4%.

Latin American airlines’ traffic rose 9.3% while European carriers’ international traffic climbed 5.0%. The load factor in Europe increased 1.0 percentage point to 82.6%, the highest among the regions. Traffic growth slowed toward the end of the year owing to strikes at Lufthansa and the shutdown of Russia’s Transaero.

Demand rose 3.2% in North America, broadly unchanged from the growth achieved in 2014. Capacity rose 3.1%, edging up the load factor 0.1 percentage points to 81.8%.

African airlines had the slowest annual demand growth, up 3.0%, although this was a significant improvement over the 0.9% annual growth achieved in 2014. International traffic rose strongly in the second half of 2015, in conjunction with a jump in trade activity.

Prospects for 2016
IATA says economic conditions remain "suoortive" of another strong year in 2016 and that lower fuel prices in recent months will provide further stimulus to travel growth.

Total international passenger numbers are running at 3.5 billion a year and this is forecast to double to seven billion by 2034.

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