IATA Forecasts Rise in Air Passengers through 2011

The rate of growth in the number of passengers flying internationally will slow down between 2007 and 2011 compared with the previous five years, but both international and domestic traffic growth still will be strong enough to provide plenty of opportunities for airlines to boost their profits, IATA predicted in a new forecast.

The forecast assumes steady global economic growth through 2011. If that happens and IATA’s projections prove to be accurate, the number of annual passengers would be 2.8 billion in 2011, which is 620 million more than in 2006.

That would break down to 980 million international passengers in 2011, up from 760 million in 2006, and 1.8 billion domestic passengers, up from 1.4 billion.

“The numbers clearly show that the world wants to fly,” IATA Director General and CEO Giovanni Bisignani said. “Parts of the world are effectively managing infrastructure development to anticipate and meet demand, particularly the Middle East and China,” Bisignani said.

Bisignani repeated complaints that European governments still have not cleaned up “the mess in air traffic management” on the Continent by effectively uniting Europe’s 35 air navigation service providers into one.

Infrastructure concerns aside, IATA said the next five years “offer significant demand growth opportunities for airlines.”

But competition for the growing demand will be strong, with more capacity scheduled to enter those markets, so “further cost efficiencies, rational capacity management and greater operational flexibility are necessary to translate the improvements already achieved into a stable and profitable industry over the next five years,” IATA said.