International air traffic starts to bounce back

International air traffic could only drop one percent below the level reached in 2002 if the current trend pointing to a slow-burn recovery proves right, according to a report issued by the International Air Transportation Association (IATA).

“The August numbers confirm there’s a positive trend underway that started out in June and July and point to a recovery in commercial flights in all regions, both in terms of passengers and cargo,” IATA president Giovanni Bisignani writes in the report.

Even though “these are promising news for our downtrodden industry and air traffic is certainly on the track to recovery,” the rebound is not coming over the same way everywhere.

According to the IATA report, air traffic was up 9 percent in the Middle East compared to the same span of time the year before, an equally robust 8.9 percent in South America and a meager 0.1 percent in Europe.

On the flop side of the coin, though, the Asia-Pacific region plunged 4.4 percent while North America went down into double digits. Africa scored only a 0.9 percent drop in that period of time.

Last August, the overall flow of passengers was 5.7 percent lower than the numbers chalked up a year before.

That trend for the first eight months of the year has climbed even higher as far as cargo is concerned. The volume of airborne goods –compared to the previous period of time- soared a staggering 15.2 percent in the Middle East, 10.4 percent in Africa, 9 percent in North America, 6.7 percent in South America, 6.3 percent in the Asia-Pacific Basin and 1.9 percent in Europe.

The IATA stats –an institution that clusters 270 airlines and comprise roughly 98 percent of the international air traffic- have been released on the eve of the its annual meeting to be held in Mascate, the capital of Oman.