The FINANCIAL — The Association of European Airlines has released traffic and capacity data for its members in April 2009, along with a projection for May.
"Passenger traffic in April was 2.4% down on the same month last year, compared with -9.1% in March and -5.5% (adjusted for the 2008 leap year) in February. While at first sight a distinct improvement, AEA warned that the shift of the Easter traffic peak from March 2008 to April 2009 distorted the growth rates in each of these months," AEA says.
Said AEA Secretary General Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus: “The four months reported so far are pieces of a jigsaw which, put together, reveal a 6% drop in traffic compared to the first four months of last year. But our three major markets – Europe, the North Atlantic and the Far East – all face far steeper traffic declines than the average”.
However, warned Mr Schulte-Strathaus, “the next piece in the jigsaw will reveal an even worse scenario”. AEA’s weekly figures for the last four weeks of May and the first week of June are relentlessly poor, with May likely to produce a decrease in the order of 9%.
A positive recent development has been an increase in the tempo of capacity reduction. In April, seat-km offered was 2.8% down on last year, whereas the preliminary May figure is -5.3% – although still substantially below the traffic decrease. Said Mr Schulte-Strathaus: “The recent EU decision to temporarily suspend the ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ rule for the allocation of airport slots is clearly having an effect, as airlines are able to adjust their capacity in response to market conditions without the risk of jeopardising the long-term integrity of their product”.
While the capacity adjustment was not yet in line with the unprecedented drop in demand, he said, it was nevertheless contributing to a cost reduction in the face of severely depressed revenues. “However, the Summer slot waiver will expire long before the business picks up; the Winter programme is being fine-tuned now, and now is the time that the airlines need reassurance that they can continue to tailor production to demand – an extension of the slot waiver for an extra timetable season is essential”.
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