European airline March traffic figures down 8%
Figures released on Monday by the Association of European Airlines (AEA) shows that March traffic for European airlines dropped 7.9 per cent from the same period last year.
The AEA said the figure excluded Sabena, Belgium’s bankrupt carrier, as well as most of Swissair’s European network. However it said that the impact of this was difficult to gauge as some of their traffic would have been retained within the AEA group of airlines.
The association said the figures were also “disturbed by differences in operating pattern between 2001 and 2002”. Last year, the final week of March was part of the Summer timetable, with its increased volume of operations. This year, the whole month fell within the less-intensive Winter schedule. Also, the Easter travel period fell partly in March 2002, but wholly in April 2001.
These factors impacted capacity, and seat-kilometres were 14.2% down on 2001, though consequently load factors were substantially increased. The overall occupancy rate was 76.9%, which was 5.2 percentage points higher than a year earlier.
The North Atlantic market saw a 15.4% drop in traffic, but on a 23% decrease in capacity. The load factor rose 7.8 points to 84.7% – a level previously only reached in peak Summer.
AEA said: “While the load factors may be a positive indicator, the traffic needs to generate reasonable revenues if the industry is to be guided back to economic stability.
“While precise data is not yet available for the first part of the year, the indications are that yields (unit revenues) are rather weak, and especially so in the North Atlantic market.”
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