Last year’s crash rate lowest in aviation history
Airline industry expects 800 million more passengers a year by 2014
Geneva airport in February 2011, getting busier: world airports will need to accommodate strong airline growth in next three years
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The rate of planes belonging to airlines that crashed in 2010 fell to its lowest level in aviation history but the number of victims rose, Iata (International Air and Transport Association) says.
The 2010 rate was 0.61, equal to one accident for every 1.6 million flights, “a significant improvement over the 0.71 rate recorded in 2009 (one accident for 1.4 million flights)”, Iata says in a press release issued 23 February as part of its annual press day.
The accident rate has been cut 42% since 2001, Iata notes.
A hull loss “is an accident in which the aircraft is destroyed or substantially damaged and is not subsequently repaired. measured in hull losses per million flights of Western-built jet aircraft.”
The organization notes that 2.4 billion people “flew safely” in 2009. There were 23 fatal accidents compared to 18 in 2009, but 786 fatalities compared to 685 in 2009. Africa holds the worst safety record, with a rate 12 times higher than the world average.
Strong growth forecast for Asia
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) -European airlines will continue to be the laggards in the airline industry in 2011, Giovanni Bisignani, Iata’s director general and CEO, told journalists at the International Air Transport Association’s annual press day. Profits worldwide for the industry are now expected to end 2010 up $15.1 billion, well above the $8.9 billion forecast in September, but Iata cautions that while the numbers look large, this represents just 1.1 percent of the industry’s revenue for the year.
Iata has also revised upwards its projections for 2011 to a net industry profit of $9.1b, up from the $5.3b forecast in September. Net margins remain weak at 2.7 percent for 2010 and falling to 1.5% percent in 2011, the organization, whose members are the world’s airlines, stated.
Industry remains fragile, “nowhere near covering cost of capital”
Kloten International Airport, Zurich, Switzerland
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Geneva’s Cointrin International Airport will most likely end 2009 with 2 percent fewer passengers, a figure that is healthier than those most airports will show this year. The figure was provided by Robert Deillon, president of AIG, which manages the airport, in an interview with Swiss wire service ATS. Deillon says that only four months showed drops, while traffic increased by 4 percent each month in October and November, compared to a year earlier.
Zurich’s Kloten airport is expected to show similar figures, says Deillon.
The figures contrast with the bigger industry picture, provided 15 December by Iata (International Air Transport Association) at an annual press conference in Geneva.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - “In 2009 we’ve not seen big tax increases coming through,” says Jeff Poole, director of airport and industry charges and taxation at IATA (International Air Transport Association) in Geneva. Poole says the big worry now is the Copenhagen climate change conference, with the likelihood that with attention focused on the environment, governments might see an opportunity to raise taxes.
Airports in particular have been good at holding down costs in 2009, a year when the airline industry organization has had on a cost-cutting campaign, with Iata asking airlines, airports and governments to keep charges at current levels or cut them. The industry had its highest-ever “proportion of real cost reductions, 86 percent, $3.02 billion” according to Poole.
Geneva, Switzerland and Kuala Lumpur (GenevaLunch) - Airlines are likely to lose $9 billion in 2009, twice the figure predicted in March, says Iata, the airline industry association. The figure was given by Iata’s director-general and CEO, Giovanni Bisignani, in his state of the industry address at the Geneva-based group’s annual general meeting this week in Kuala Lumpur. He says the revised figures reflect “a rapidly deteriorating revenue environment.” Bisignani pointed out that it took the industry three years to recover after the drop in travel post-September 2001, and that was after a 7 percent fall in reveneus. This time the revenue drop is expected to be 15 percent.
2009: stormy days for airlines
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Airlines around the world are expected to lose $5 billion in 2008, of which European airlines will lose $1b, a 10-fold drop. Overall, revenues will fall to $501b with losses rather than profits the story in every region except North America, where profits will be less than 1% of revenue.
