More planes, better services needed as aviation booms

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Thursday, 17 February 2011

The International Air Transport Aviation (IATA) says that within three years, international aviation will handle 3.3 billion air travellers, up by 800 million from the 2.5 billion in 2009, while cargo business could reach 38 million tonnes compared to 26 million tonnes carried in 2009.

It says China will be the biggest contributor of new travellers, with 360 million more passengers tipped to travel on Asia Pacific routes and of those, 214 million to come from China (181 million domestic and 33 million international).

The United States will remain the largest single country market for domestic passengers (671 million) and international passengers (215 million), the Association says.

IATA says this growth in demand will put pressure on airport infrastructure as well as requiring more aircraft.