Asia represents almost a third of all scheduled airline seats across the world with China set to eclipse North America within 10 years, according to latest figures from OAG.
Scheduled seats within the region increased 9% this month over January 2010 to more than 93 million. The number of flights also increased 9%.
Seat capacity to and from Asia increased 11% to 15.2 million while frequency was up by 12%, according to the aviation intelligence firm’s monthly Frequency and Capacity Trend Statistics (FACTS) report.
The total number of seats worldwide is 311.2 million, a 6% increase over the same month a year ago. Scheduled flights rose by 5% to 2.5 million.
Peter von Moltke, chief executive of OAG parent company UBM Aviation, said: “Emergent markets are rapidly catching up with established regions in terms of size.
“One significant example is the strong and continued growth within the Chinese market; with future expectations of growth in demand, it is likely that this market will be larger than the total North American market within the decade.”
Seat capacity in North America grew by 2% in January to a total of 74.5 million, and flights increased just 1%. Travel to and from North America increased 3% to a total of 17.4 million seats, OAG said.
The Middle East continues to show strong growth with the number of seats and flights increasing 12% to a total of 11.7 million seats and 53,771 flights.
“Growth in this region is largely due to the development of three major hub airports in the Middle East, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha,” said John Grant, senior vice president for UBM Aviation company Airport Strategy & Marketing.
“Year-over-year capacity to and from the region increased 12% through a combination of increasing hub capacity, and more importantly, the emergence of new low cost airlines in the region.”
A ten-year review of global capacity reflects an increase in seat capacity of 36%. Travel to and from the Middle East increased 182% since January 2002, while capacity within North American declined 7%.