Anna.aero. May 2011
While the US and European air traffic markets are showing some signs of maturity with slowing underlying growth rates, the Asian air travel market is still growing strongly. This week’s anna.aero analysis looks at the biggest domestic markets in the region, their current growth rates, and examines which are the leading international markets in the region. Mainland China’s domestic market has long since passed Japan as the biggest in the region and in 2010, it grew by 15%, having grown by 22% in 2009. In contrast Japan’s domestic market declined in both 2009 and 2010. Having gradually overcome the various political barriers imposed, airlines from both Mainland China and Taiwan are now able to fly non-stop across the Taiwan Strait, allowing capacity to have grown by 35% in the last year, despite strict controls over which carriers can operate which routes and with what frequency. Given how quickly this market has grown, it is possible that it could become the biggest international market in the region before the end of the decade.
