European Air Traffic Disappointing

Recent Association of European Airlines traffic figures showed there was a stable growth pattern of around plus 10% for North Atlantic traffic but that inter-Europe traffic refuses to pick up its pace and instead dropped slightly.

“In this context, the lack of consistency in the European market is disappointing,” said the association, “especially at a time when we urgently need to rebuild our market base, a minus figure -even as small as this one- is troubling.” On the other hand, the association said that it is encouraging to see that we are at last achieving the sort of traffic growth on the North Atlantic that we would have anticipated throughout the year, had it not been for upheavals of war and SARS.

“It is encouraging also that, while SARS is still causing severe losses in the Far Eastern market, those losses are diminishing along a steady trend line.”