IATA Reports Premium Travel Fell in January

[ChrisW]

Surprise, surpirse, eh?

According to the IATA, the collapse of the banking sector specifically has hurt travel the most.

Overall, the IATA reports that worldwide, premium travel (first and business class) fell 16.7% in January, resulting in at least a 25% drop in revenue for airlines worldwide. The market hit the worst appears to be Asia, which saw a 23.4% decline in premium travelers intra-Asia and 24.7% decline in trans-Pacific premium travel.

One strong performer is, surprisingly, Delta's Africa services. Delta's Africa markets saw a 18.9% growth in premium travel. Fares between Africa and the U.S. are holding up well, as per IATA data.

The IATA collects data from 230 of the world's airlines (93% of scheduled international traffic).

Edit - figures compiled from IATA document http://is.gd/nUtR.

[ConcordeBoy]

One strong performer is, surprisingly, Delta's Africa services. Delta's Africa markets saw a 18.9% growth in premium travel. Fares between Africa and the U.S. are holding up well, as per IATA data.

...which sorta makes you wonder what the others are waiting for. All have gateways with perfect positioning and strong O&D (IAD for UA), (EWR for CO), and both JFK and MIA for AA-- for decent African operations. AA seems in the position to attack from a dual front, and they have plenty of intercon-capable eqp with which to do so.

AA's arguably-destructivly-conservative nature notwithstanding, I'm almost amazed that they haven't (at least more publicly) taken the initiative yet.