IATA: Latin America leads international traffic growth in 2016, Nth America demand much stronger

IATA reported (04-Aug-2016) the following highlights for international passenger markets for Jun-2016:

• Global: Total international passenger demand rose 5% year-on-year, with all regions recording growth, led by airlines in Latin America. Capacity climbed 6.4%, causing load factor to slide 1.1 percentage points to 79.4%;
• Asia Pacific: Traffic up 8.2%. Most of the growth relates to the strong upward trend in traffic seen in the final months of 2015 and into 2016, with Jun-2016 demand barely higher than in Feb-2016. According to IATA "this could be a natural pause, but possibly is also a sign of Asian passengers being put off travel by terrorism in Europe". Capacity rose 7.3% and load factor inched up 0.6 percentage points to 78.2%;
• Europe: Traffic up 2.1%, the smallest increase among regions, reflecting the negative impact of recent terrorism. IATA noted that while demand tends to recover reasonably quickly after such events, the repeated nature of the attacks may have a more lasting impact. Capacity climbed 3.4% and load factor slipped 1.1% percentage points to 83.3%;
• Middle East: Traffic up 7.5% "well down" on growth rates recorded earlier in 2016. Part of the slowing may be attributed to the timing of Ramadan, which tends to depress traffic growth. Capacity rose 14.3%, which caused load factor to dive 4.4 percentage points to 69.9%;
• North America: Traffic up 4% and strongly up compared to the May-2016 growth of 0.5%. Capacity climbed 4.7%, causing load factor to dip 0.6 percentage points to 84.3%, still the highest among regions;
• Latin America: Traffic up 8.8%. This suggest that regional carriers "have flown out of the soft patch seen in the first quarter" stated IATA. Capacity increased by 5.2% and load factor rose 2.7 percentage points to 82.4%;
• African: Traffic up 4.7%, an indication that the strong upward trend in demand that began in 2H2015 has paused. Capacity rose 7.4%, with the result that load factor slipped 1.7 percentage points to 64.4%, lowest among regions. [more - original PR]