International Air Travel Increases Again in March

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced today that March 2010 international scheduled air traffic showed continued strengthening of demand. Compared to March 2009, passenger demand was up 10.3%, while cargo demand grew 28.1%. Both are improvements from the 9.0% and 26.3% growth for passenger and freight demand recorded in February.

These are strong gains, but the data is being compared to March 2009, which was the low point for international air travel during the recession. “March results show that the pace of the upturn is strong. But the trauma of the recession is not over. The industry has lost two years of growth, and passenger and freight markets are still 1% below early 2008 highs. Nonetheless, the pace of improvement, based on an improving global economic situation, is much faster than anybody would have expected even six months ago,” said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO. IATA noted that the International Monetary Fund revised global GDP growth forecasts from 3.0% to 4.3% for 2010.

The strong traffic recovery is expected to show a dip in April as a result of the eruption of an Icelandic volcano in April that saw the shutdown of large portions of European airspace over a six-day period.