OAG Reveals Major Upturn in Global Airline Capacity

• 88,000 extra world-wide flights in January alone
• US, Asia-Pacific and Middle East lead the recovery
• Tsunami tragedy - too early to gauge impact on scheduled airline confidence

Demand for world air travel is picking up fast, according to latest figures from OAG, with the US, Asia-Pacific, and Middle Eastern markets leading the way.

The world’s airlines will operate nearly 2.25 million flights this month alone, almost 88,000 more than in January 2004.

To and from the UK, airlines will be operating an extra 3,572 flights – equivalent to offering more than one million extra tickets for sale than in the same month in 2004.

“Most of the airline industry has faced difficult financial circumstances,” says Duncan Alexander, Managing Director of OAG Business Development, “so these latest figures will be widely welcomed. They’re a clear indication of airline confidence in a continuing market recovery.”

The statistics are revealed in OAG’s latest Global Airline Capacity Bulletin, a quarterly snapshot of airline activity around the world. OAG collates data from 1000 airlines, on a daily basis, which enables them to provide accurate statistics on anticipated travel demand.

For example, airlines will operate more than 839,000 flights within the USA during January. This domestic capacity has increased by 4 per cent which equates to nearly 28,000 additional flights. There will be 6,744 additional international flights to and from the USA and Canada which represents a 6 per cent increase on January 2004, highlighting the revival of travel demand for North America.

The number of flights to and from the Asia-Pacific region is up more than 4,000, or 12 per cent on January 2004, but the number of flights within the region has increased 7 per cent with an additional 29,695 flights scheduled this month.

“The terrible tsunami tragedy has had a major impact upon many aspects of local infrastructure however it is too early to evaluate the impact on demand for scheduled air travel,” says Alexander. “Two airports – in Phuket and Penang – suffered significant initial scheduled flight cancellations. OAG is in constant communication with its airline customers and will continue to monitor the situation.”

The third major growth area was the Middle East. The number of flights operated to and from the region this month will be more than 15 per cent higher than in January 2004, bolstered by a 6 per cent increase in flights within the Middle East.

Note to Editors:
This month we re-launch the quarterly figures, now called ‘OAG Quarterly Capacity Bulletin.’ Due to restructuring at OAG a decision was made to discontinue OAG’s quarterly announcements on global airline capacity trends. The new style report will be available during 2005 and beyond.
Your comments and suggestions on the information provided are most welcome at dalexander@oag.com