IATA: Premium-Class Traffic Growth To Be Modest In Near Term

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 23 (Bernama) -- Premium-class traffic for the airline industry will likely continue to grow at a modest rate in the near term due to lack of demand, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said. In a statement, IATA said premium traffic volumes grew by an estimated 3.7 per cent in 2015 with much of the growth seen early in 2015 as the upward trend eased over the latter months of the year. "The easing in the upward trend of premium traffic over the second half of last year relates to broad-based weakness in the drivers of premium travel demand, including the ongoing uneven pattern of global economic growth and the emergence of key economic risks. "The second headwind for premium traffic has been the ongoing sluggishness of world trade growth because trade growth tends to correlate with business-related premium travel demand," it said. IATA said premium traffic in the North Atlantic -- the largest market in terms of revenue -- was estimated to have grown by a healthy 4.5 per cent in 2015 as a whole, supported by solid economic growth in the United States and a modest cyclical upturn in Europe. By contrast, it said the weakness of premium-demand drivers in emerging Asia means that premium volume growth underperformed significantly in some of the region's key passenger markets. "Trade volumes to and from emerging Asia contracted on a month-on-month basis for five consecutive periods during the second half of 2015, and economic growth slowed in key regional economies, notably China," it added. --BERNAMA