BREAKING NEWS are figures published today by OAG which shows that the
unremitting growth in air transport may be slowing down. The July
figures for actual seats on offer, compiled from the numbers on the
OAG database, was overall only 1% up on July 2005. Broken down the
growth shows a different story with European aviation activity rising
by 9%, with 1.5m extra seats on sale this month. The number of July
flights to and from the UK, and to and from France, is only 3% up on
the same month last year. However, the number of scheduled services
into and out of Eastern Europe is up 12%, with Poland (up 21%) and
Turkey (plus 19%) seeing the biggest growth in international flights.
On transatlantic routes between North America and Western Europe,
airlines have added capacity ” the number of flights scheduled is up
5% over July 2005. On North American transpacific routes, however,
there has been zero growth. Capacity within the United States
domestic region has dropped by 5%, with 43,000 fewer flights scheduled
than in July of 2005. This reduction equates to a reduction of more
than 4m seats available to travellers. It remains however by far the
largest market.