The Association of European Airlines, which represents Europe’s most important network carriers, has published its traffic and capacity figures for the last two months of 2009.
The outcome for the year was a decrease in passenger-kilometres of 4.5% with an even greater fall of 5.8% in the number of passengers boarded, from 346 million to just below 326m. This 20m drop easily surpasses the previously greatest recorded annual traffic loss, of 14m in 2002, following the 9/11 outrage.
Given that the year-on-year comparison was with a steadily worsening trend in the 2008 baseline, it is unsurprising that the rate of traffic loss decreased through the later stages of the year, finishing with a December traffic volume no lower, but equally no higher, than in December 2008.
All the main operating regions were amongst the poorer performers; cross-border traffic within Europe was 5.3% down, the North Atlantic minus 5.6% and the Far East minus 5.9%. Traffic to/from the Middle East and Africa managed to buck the trend with a positive growth.
Effective capacity management through the latter part of the Summer helped to mitigate the effect of the traffic downturn and load factors improved year-on-year from July onwards, but insufficient to prevent a small decrease for the year as a whole, down 0.3 points to 76.0%, as overall, passenger capacity decreased by 4.2%.
If the passenger market was very weak, the airfreight market fared much worse, with a decrease of 16.5%. In the largest market for AEA airlines, to/from the Far East, the shortfall was 22.8%.
Said AEA Secretary General Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus: “the stark reality of the figures tells us what we know already – our sector has just come through an astonishing year.
The crisis has not receded – its repercussions will be felt well into the future, and in some respects the face of the industry will be changed fundamentally”.
“We have seen, quite clearly, that the industry’s suppliers and service providers have been able to insulate themselves from the worst of the downturn by their ability to recover costs, or sustain profits, through their pricing policies. This lesson must be taken on board by our regulators. We have seen, quite clearly, that airlines and their passengers cannot sustainably be treated as a cash cow by national treasuries, to be taxed and taxed again. This lesson, too, must be taken on board by our regulators”.
“We have adapted, in the face of the downturn. There has been an increase in the tempo of the consolidation process. The importance of economies of scale, of coherent networks and optimised fleet structures, has been re-emphasised. For niche markets, the key is a consistency of service, tailored to the specificities of the market.
We understand these priorities; it is important for our regulators to understand them too”.
