Asia Pacific’s Aviation Industry Remains Buoyant

Singapore, Singapore, February 01, 2007 --(PR.com)-- Asia’s air travellers can this month choose from nearly 85 million scheduled airline seats, with the world’s carriers laying on more flights to, from and within the region than ever before.

Latest statistics from travel and transport information company OAG show that airlines are flying more than 11.7 million seats on routes to and from the Asia-Pacific region this month – nine per cent more than in January last year – and more than 73.2 million seats on intra-regional services, an increase of seven per cent.

The January totals of 46,700 intercontinental flights and 493,000 intra-regional flights are also up nine and seven per cent respectively. Five years ago, airlines operated 29,000 flights to and from Asia-Pacific, and 351,000 within the region.

The figures are revealed in the latest OAG Quarterly Airline Traffic Statistics, a regular snapshot of airline activity around the world. OAG collates data from more than 1,000 scheduled airlines, on a daily basis, to give an overview of anticipated travel demand.

“Once again, Asia-Pacific airline activity is growing much faster than the global average,” says Vice President of OAG Asia Pacific, Fred Seow. “This month sees a 14 per cent increase in flight to and from China and an 11 per cent growth in internal flights. While the number of flights to and from India is up 13 per cent, domestic flights have shot up 47 per cent, from 27,000-plus last January to more than 40,000.”

The other significant news for the Asia-Pacific region is the growth in low-cost operations. Budget airlines have packed 23 per cent more flights into their intercontinental January schedules, and the number of intra-Asian low-cost flights is up by more than 22,000, a 67 per cent increase.

Worldwide, the number of low-cost flights is 15 per cent higher than in January last year, with Asia accounting for more than half of all new low-cost services globally.

Overall for the month, the region recording the biggest relative growth in aviation activity is the Middle East, with a 12 per cent increase in international flights and a 13 per cent increase in intra-regional operations.

The number of flights to and from Africa is ten per cent higher, while Europe has seen an eight per cent increase in intercontinental schedules. This January sees a five per cent increase in flights to and from the US, and four per cent more flights to and from Latin America. 

Notes to Editors:

• Analysis on specific countries and key routes and hubs worldwide is available from OAG on request.
• Analysis and comment with a global, a Europe and a US focus is available from OAG on request.

About OAG

OAG is a global travel and transport information company.

It has three core activities:

• managing and distributing information within the passenger and cargo aviation sectors
• providing travel information to business travellers
• providing advertising and promotion opportunities for the aviation and travel communities.

OAG’s business is underpinned by its data management expertise. It holds a breadth of travel related content and is best known for its airline schedules database. This holds future and historical flight details for 1,000 airlines and more than 3,500 airports. Every ten seconds a flight is updated on the OAG system. Over the coming year it will track around 28 million departures.

Using these vast databases, OAG provides a broad range of multi-lingual products for business and consumer customers, available in virtually any way the customer wants it: Internet, PDA, mobile, digital and print.

OAG has 9 offices in Europe, the Americas and Asia. More information about the company, its products and its services is available on the OAG web sites www.oag.com, www.oagdata.com and www.oagcargo.com.

OAG is part of Commonwealth Business Media (www.cbizmedia.com), a wholly owned subsidiary of United Business Media plc (www.unitedbusinessmedia.com).

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