Middle East air carriers continued to record strong growth in passenger traffic in April, marking an 11% y/y increase, well above the global average growth of just 3.2%, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said.
April’s growth rate, however, retreated from the 15.6% achieved in March. MENA airlines registered a 12.9% increase in capacity in April that cut their load factor by 1.4pp to 76.8% from 79.7% in March.
Demand for air travel has benefitted from expanding trade volumes in the Middle East and Africa since late 2011, with regional airlines embarking on a network and capacity expansion to take advantage of that growth, IATA said.
“Passenger demand continued to grow in April, extending the positive trend that has been developing since late 2012,” said IATA’s CEO Tony Tyler.
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