Air trends: China to overtake North America 'within a decade'

(AFP PHOTO)

Air travel in China will have overtaken North America by the end of the decade, according to predictions made this month by global aviation analyst OAG.

In its monthly global aviation statistics report released last week, OAG reported that Asia accounted for nearly one third of global air travel this month, with over 93 million seats available in the region.

With China's share of those Asian seats rapidly growing, it won't be long before the Chinese market alone outstrips the 74.5 million seats on planes flying within North America this month, said OAG.

Globally, 2.5 million flights will take to the skies in January, up five percent on the same month last year when the global aviation recovery was just getting underway.

Flights to and from Asia, the Middle East and Africa all boasted a rise of 12 percent, to a total of 62,399 flights to and from Asia Pacific, 53,771 flights to and from the Middle East and 40,319 flights to and from Africa.

Impressively, Europe posted a rise in flight numbers of almost the same level, up ten percent to 104,811 flights heading to or from the region this month.

Flights to and from North America stayed fairly static, with 87,731 expected this January.

Airports seeing notable growth in the number of flights they handle this month include Shanghai, Doha and Delhi (17 percent more flights), Hong Kong (15 percent more flights) and Tokyo Haneda (14 percent more flights).

http://www.oag.com