If the skies (and the waiting rooms) seem a bit crowded these days, there’s a good reason. The International Civil Aviation Organization says 2016 saw a more than 6% increase in air travel, to about 3.7 billion passengers.
It’s not quite as big a rise as last year’s 7.1 percent, but it’s in line with recent trends. According to ICAO, the biggest growth came in the Middle East (11.2%), followed by Asia (8), Latin America (6.5) and Africa (5.7), Europe (4.3) and North America (3.5).
Although North America showed the lowest growth percentage, it still accounted for 43% of the world’s scheduled domestic flights, up 4.3%. That’s partly because a larger portion of U.S. travel is by air, compared to dense rail networks in other areas. China and India, with increasing domestic networks, helped push Asia up by 10%.
A big trend in the data was the continued growth of low-cost carriers, which accounted for 28% of the traffic world-wide, carrying over 1 billion passengers for the first time. In Europe, the discounters did 31% of the business, and in the U.S. their share has reached 25%.
The increased traffic and lower fuel costs have meant profitability for many of the carriers…and they are expecting more.
