Economic recovery not yet visible for European air transport sector

According to the EUROCONTROL Short-Term Forecast, the five busiest States (UK, Germany, Spain, France and Italy) all contributed to a decline in traffic on the European network between May and August 2009. In the UK, traffic is expected to fall by 8% in 2009, partly caused by the reduction in internal flights and in flows to/from US and most of big European States. Internal flights and the weak flows to big European States have also considerably affected the traffic growth in Italy which is predicted to be down by 2%. Spain, France and Germany are likely to see a year-on-year decrease in traffic of 8%, 7% and 6% respectively. Turkey is one of the few countries expected to see a growth in traffic in 2009 with a predicted +3% increase over 2008. All major market segments are continuing to operate fewer flights than in 2008. The low-cost segment as a whole shows the clearest signs of heading back into growth, but with the failure of SkyEurope, even this segment remains in decline. The EUROCONTROL Short-Term Forecast does predict that this sector could return to growth by November. However, for all-cargo and business aviation even the partial recovery seen during the summer months is looking fragile. Traffic growth to the top 6 destinations outside Europe in August 2009 reveals that flows to US, Russia, Tunisia and Egypt are still in decline, meanwhile traffic growth to Morocco and Israel increased respectively by 8% and 6%. A number of European economies may have left recession behind, but the recovery in traffic growth is arriving more slowly than forecast, said David Marsh, Head of Forecasting at EUROCONTROL. Implicit in this forecast is a return to weak growth in November or December 2009. However, with further cuts in the Winter 09/10 timetables announced by some airlines, the recovery could be 3-6 months later than that. Download the Short-Term Forecast at: http://www.eurocontrol.int/statfor/public/subsite_homepage/homepage.html