European airlines registered a 3.3 % growth in passenger numbers in first half of 2014

During the first six months of the year, the members of the Association of European Airlines (AEA) registered a 3.3% growth in the number of passengers transported. Compared to the first half of 2013, an additional 5.6 million passengers were welcomed. The positive figures reflect buoyancy in demand for air travel in Europe and beyond.

The 24 members who participate in the traffic survey of the Association of European Airlines transported 176 million passengers during the first half of 2014 on board their European and intercontinental flights.

Long haul, intercontinental passenger traffic to and from Europe registered a growth of 4.7 %. The short and medium haul services generated a more modest increase of 2.9 % to 96.8 million passengers.

The overall passenger load factors continued to improve slightly (+ 0.3 percentage points).

The air freight activity of the AEA members, which last year registered a decline, posted a growth of 4 % during the first six months of 2014.

“These are encouraging growth figures which reflect the higher demand for air travel”, comments AEA’s CEO Athar Husain Khan. “Our member airlines have clearly made strong efforts to improve their business performance and increased the attractiveness of their products in a highly competitive market environment.”

AEA has recently released its annual S.T.A.R. (Summary of Traffic and Annual Results) report. S.T.A.R. is an unrivalled source of AEA member airlines’ data and an essential resource for researchers, analysts and planners, with a wealth of passenger and cargo data by airline and by region as well as aggregate yield revenue information. Researchers, analysts and planners can get a free sample and order a copy by going to our website.