Outlook for Air Transport to the Year 2015 - FILT CGIL Foggia

36 Outlook for Air Transport to the Year 2015and 2015. In absolute terms, the increase in passenger-kilometres during the forecast period is expected to besome 2 180 billion, which is more than twice the 1 013 billion increase during the period 1992–2002. Theabsolute increase in passengers carried is projected to be slightly above 900 million by 2015, compared with469 million between 1992 and 2002.REGIONAL PASSENGER FORECASTS14. The “most likely” forecasts of scheduled airline passenger traffic by region of airline registration aregiven in Table 5-2, together with historical figures for 1992 and 2002. The airlines of the Middle East andAsia/Pacific regions are expected to show the highest growth in passenger traffic, at 6.4 per cent and 6.1 per centper annum respectively, through to the year 2015, while the airlines of North America are anticipated to show thelowest growth, around 2.8 per cent per annum. Traffic of the airlines of the African and the LatinAmerica/Caribbean regions are expected to grow at about 4 per cent per annum, whereas traffic of Europeanairlines is forecast to grow at 4.1 per cent, slightly below the world average.15. As a result of the projected growth in passenger traffic, the airlines of the Asia/Pacific region areexpected to increase their share of world passenger traffic (in terms of passenger-kilometres) by about6.5 percentage points to 33.2 per cent, with their share of total international scheduled passenger traffic increasingto about 37 per cent, both traffic shares being the highest among all the regions.16. A significant change in regional share is expected to occur in North America, whose airlines’ share isanticipated to decline by about 6.5 percentage points to 30.3 per cent by the year 2015. The shares of internationaland domestic scheduled traffic of North America are expected to decrease, but the region will still hold thehighest share of world domestic traffic at 58.6 per cent. The shares of airlines of other regions are anticipated toremain almost unchanged.PASSENGER FORECASTS FORINTERCONTINENTAL ROUTE GROUPS17. The forecasts of the number of passengers carried on scheduled services in nine intercontinental routegroups, accounting for almost 38 per cent of international passengers in 2002, are presented in Table 5-3. For themajority of these route groups, growth rates for the 2002–2015 period are forecast to be slightly lower than duringthe 1992–2002 period. Traffic across the North Atlantic suffered a major setback due to the events of11 September 2001 and has since been declining; however, it is expected to recover and grow at the worldaverage. The Transpacific route group is expected to grow fastest among the nine route groups at an averageannual rate of 6.6 per cent.18. Since 2001, the route groups to/from Europe have experienced a slowdown in their growth rates but areanticipated to increase at about the same rate as in the past decade, except for the Europe-Asia/Pacific marketwhich is expected to grow at about 2 percentage points lower than in the past decade, thus achieving the sameaverage as the world during the forecast period.19. The remaining route groups shown in Table 5-3 are smaller in terms of passenger numbers. Their growthrates up to the year 2015 are projected to range from a high of 4.9 per cent for the Mid-Atlantic to a low of 4.5 percent for the South Atlantic and the North America-South America route groups. The growth in air travel demandin most of these markets is supported by competitive services and by growth in leisure travel.