Global Airline Capacity and Flight Volumes Continue to Decline, According to OAG

Eighth Successive Month of Fewer Airline Schedules

LONDON, March 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The world's airlines have
scheduled 4.9% fewer flights for March 2009 compared with the same month last
year, with a 3.3% drop in seat capacity, according to the latest statistics
from OAG (http://www.oagaviation.com), the world's leading aviation data
business. This is the eighth successive month of declines, and represents a
reduction of more than 122,000 flights and 9.8 million seats year on year.
The total number of flights scheduled to operate worldwide this month is 2.38
million, offering 289.8 million seats to travelers around the globe.
The figures are revealed in the March 2009 edition of OAG FACTS
(Frequency & Capacity Trend Statistics), the dynamic monthly market
intelligence tool providing the latest data on current passenger airline
activity around the world.
Global airline schedules for the first quarter 2009 have dropped by 6.7%,
or 491,000 fewer flights. This is the first time we have seen a downturn in
Q1 figures since 2002, when the industry was absorbing the double impact of
9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. and an economic meltdown from the burst of
the dot.com bubble. Capacity for this quarter also has fallen by 4.4%,
representing a reduction of 38.6 million seats.
Within the United States this month, domestic airline flight activity has
dropped 9.2% overall, or 76,164 fewer flights, resulting in 6.5 million fewer
seats. The U.S. low cost sector is showing a year-on-year decrease for the
month of just over 9% for both frequencies and capacity.
David Beckerman, VP Market Intelligence at OAG, said: "The OAG figures
for March reveal a continuing slowdown in the global figures and on the key
long-haul routes between North America and hubs in Europe, Asia Pacific and
Latin America. Asia is holding up much better with a marginal decline in
frequencies and slight growth in intra-regional capacity, while the Middle
East is bucking the global trend with comparatively healthy growth,
especially for international operations. Europe continues to see sharp
cutbacks on routes to, from and within the region, while Africa remains
fairly stable compared with this time last year."
OAG FACTS uses interactive graphs to display a visual trend of the
performance of a specific airport, route, country or region from 2001
onwards, sourced from OAG's consolidated database of global airline
schedules. For a fuller review of this month's OAG FACTS statistics, please
visit http://www.oagaviation.com/aviation-reports/reports-f-and-c-trends.htm.
OAG, part of UBM Aviation (http://www.ubmaviation.com), provides
essential aviation workflow data and analytics sourced from its comprehensive
proprietary airline schedules, fleet and MRO databases. UBM Aviation is a
division of United Business Media Limited (http://www.unitedbusinessmedia.com)
Notes to Editors
For media enquiries and a copy of the full Executive Summary, please
contact:
Alison Pickering
Corporate Communications
UBM Aviation
alison.pickering@ubmaviation.com
+44(0)1582-695477

SOURCE OAG Worldwide Ltd (UBM Subsidary)

Alison Pickering, Corporate Communications, UBM Aviation,
alison.pickering@ubmaviation.com, +44(0)1582-695477