Thu, Feb 17, 2011
2010 Shows A Slight Increase Over the Previous Year
Aviation in Europe pulled out of the economic downturn and
began to climb again in 2010, according to statistics from the
European Air Traffic Control organization Eurocontrol. The total
number of flights in Europe in 2010 was 9.49 million, an increase
of 0.8% compared to 2009.
Growth was driven mainly by low-cost carriers, which saw an
increase of 6.9% compared to 2009, though this slowed markedly at
the end of the year. Business aviation also contributed strongly to
growth, bouncing back from 2009 with an increase of 5.5%. Flight
growth was concentrated in a few States: Turkey, Italy, Ukraine and
Germany were the States adding most traffic to the European
network. The economic crisis and a series of general strikes
reduced traffic in Greece overall; and the UK and Ireland both
ended the year with fewer flights than the already reduced levels
of 2009. Russia was a clear source of growth this year, and indeed
for one month during the Summer passed the US as the main external
partner for Europe.
In 2010, the delays increased from an average of 1.6 minutes per
flight in 2009 to 2.7 minutes per flight in 2010.
2010 also saw significant flight cancellations as a result of
weather, the ash-clouds, strikes and capacity shortages. An
estimated 175,000 scheduled flights were cancelled during the year.
Even if the effects of the ash-cloud are removed, this is 2.5 times
as many cancellations as in 2009.
"In 2010 we already saw the beginnings of growth and in 2011, we
expect further increase of at least 3.6% in the number of flights
across Europe. This will come from the bounce-back from the
ash-cloud, but also as airlines continue to search for the right
level of capacity to meet the post-economic crisis demand", said
David Marsh, Head of Forecasting at Eurocontrol. "The upside and
downside risks to the forecast are probably in balance across
Europe as a whole, but between individual States, we will continue
to see strong divergence."
These forecasts are actively used to plan the necessary and most
beneficial actions in supporting the network to reduce delays and
improve the capacity to achieve the EU performance targets.
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