European airlines registered a 3.3% growth in passenger numbers in HY1 according to the Association of European Airlines (AEA).

 

The AEA says that compared to the first half of 2013, an additional 5.6m passengers were carried reflecting positive demand for air travel in Europe and beyond.

 

AEA’s 24 member airlines in its traffic survey transported 176m passengers during the first half of 2014 on both European and intercontinental flights. Long haul intercontinental passenger traffic to and from Europe registered a growth of 4.7%. Short and medium haul services generated a more modest increase of 2.9% to 96.8m passengers. Overall passenger load factors continued to improve slightly (+ 0.3 percentage points).

 

Air freight activity amongst AEA members – which fell last year – posted a growth of 4% during the first six months of 2014.

 

“These are encouraging growth figures which reflect the higher demand for air travel”, said AEA CEO Athar Husain Khan. “Our member airlines have clearly made strong efforts to improve their business performance and increased the attractiveness of their products in a highly competitive market environment.”