August's North American Air Traffic at Lowest Level in Ten Years, Says OAG

Scheduled flight operations within North America will be at their lowest August level for 10 years, according to the latest statistics from flight schedule data market leader OAG, a UBM Aviation brand.

The OAG FACTS (Frequency and Capacity Trend Statistics) for August 2012 reveals that this month there will be 953,083 fewer air seats offered within North America compared with August 2011, with 21,401 fewer flights.  For the year to date, decreases of two  percent in flights and one  percent in seat capacity have been experienced compared with the first eight months of 2011.

Only three of North America's top 10 hubs (San Francisco at 7 percent, Charlotte at 5 percent and Toronto at 4 percent) will show significant growth in seat capacity this month, while capacity at Chicago O'Hare will drop by three  percent.

North America's flights and seats to and from other worldwide regions will both show a 2 percent increase in August, offering some better news, but the biggest growth in long-haul traffic is seen in the Middle East - driven largely by the United Arab Emirates and Dubai in particular.

This month will see flight operations to and from the Middle East grow by 7 percent to 64,252, while seat capacity will increase by eight  percent to reach 14,219,564 - nearly 4,000 more flights and more than a million more seats offered than in August 2011.  Traffic within the Middle East region is also expected to grow by 4 percent (flights) and 3 percent (seats).

Seat capacity at eight of the world's top 10 airports will grow this month.  Beijing's year-on-year increase of 8 percent brings it ever closer to Atlanta as the world's largest hub in terms of seats offered, while Tokyo's offering increased by nearly 375,000 seats, up 5 percent on August 2011, securing its status as the world's fourth-largest hub after London-Heathrow.

Worldwide, airlines have increased flights by 16,948 and seats by 9,608,208, taking the total scheduled flight operations for August 2012 to 2,789,437 and the total of seats offered to 361,193,356.  This represents growth of one  percent in flights but 3 percent in seats, which is explained by the increased use of larger aircraft. Average aircraft seat capacity is 129 this month compared with 127 in August 2011.

For the year to date, scheduled flights show a growth of 2 percent and seat capacity an increase of 3 percent compared with the January-August period last year.

OAG FACTS is updated on a monthly basis and provides a visual snapshot of airline activity around the world, using interactive graphs to display 10-year performance trends, sourced from OAG's consolidated database of global airline schedules.