Africa-registered airlines accounted for 2.2% of global scheduled pas­sen­ger traffic last year, reports the International Air Transport Association (Iata) in its World Air Transport Statistics 2016 – the sixtieth edition of this publication. In numerical terms, African airlines carried 79.5-million passengers, an increase of 1.8% on 2014. Globally, the increase in air passenger traffic was 7.2%.

“Last year, airlines safely carried 3.6-billion passengers – the equivalent of 48% of the earth’s population – and transported 52.2-million tons of cargo worth around $6-trillion,” highlighted outgoing Iata director-general and CEO Tony Tyler. “In doing so, we sup­ported some $2.7-trillion in economic activity and 63-million jobs.”

Regarding the other regions of the world, Asia-Pacific remained by far the biggest in terms of its global air passenger market share, at 34% (or 1.2-billion passengers, an increase of 10% on 2014). Europe ranked second, at 26.2% (or 935.5-million passengers, a rise of 6.7%). North America ranked third at 24.8% (or 883.2-million passengers, up 5.2%). Latin America was fourth, at 7.5% (or 267.6-million passengers, a rise of 4.7%). The Middle East was fifth, at 5.3% (or 188.2-million passengers, an increase of 8.1%). Africa occupied the final place.

The dominance of the Asia-Pacific region is further highlighted by the fact that the top five international and regional passenger airport pairs were all located within this region. They are Hong Kong-Taipei (5.1-million passengers, up 2.1% from 2014), Jakarta-Singapore (3.4-million, down 2.6%), Bangkok Suvarnabhumi-Hong Kong (3-million, a jump of 29.2%), Kuala Lumpur-Singapore (2.7-million, an increase of 13%) and Hong Kong-Singapore (2.7-million, a decrease of 3.2%). Likewise, the leading five domestic passenger airport pairs were also in Asia-Pacific. They are Jeju-Seoul Gimpo, in South Korea (11.1-million, a rise of 7.1%), Sapporo-Tokyo Haneda – both in Japan (7.8-million, a rise of 1.3%) and Fukuoka-Tokyo Haneda (7.6-million, down 7.4%); perhaps surprisingly, in fourth place is Melbourne Tullamarine-Sydney, in Australia (7.2-million, a drop of 2.2%) and fifth, Beijing Capital-Shanghai Hongqiao (6.1-million, up 6.1%).

However, this domination by Asia-Pacific disappears in the list of the biggest airlines in the world last year, in terms of the number of passengers carried on scheduled flights. The top three places are filled by US carriers. First is American Airlines, with 146.5-million passengers; second, Southwest Airlines (144.6-million); and third, Delta Air Lines (138.8-million). In fourth place is China Southern Airlines (109.3-million); and fifth, Ryanair (101.4-million). The biggest airline alliance is Star Alliance, with 23% of global scheduled passenger traffic, measured in revenue passenger-kilometres. Sky Team was second, with 20.4% and Oneworld third, with 17.8%.

Among the major population countries, the one which saw the biggest growth in domestic passenger traffic was India, where the number of passengers jumped by 18.8% to 80-million. Chinese domestic air passenger numbers increased by 9.7% to 394-million, while in the US the figure rose 5.4% to 708-million.

In terms of airfreight, cargo measured in freight ton kilometres increased 2.3% globally. The top five scheduled airfreight carriers, measured by the total tons of cargo carried, are FedEx Express (7.1-million tons), United Parcel Service (4.5-million tons), Emirates Airline (2.5-million tons), Cathay Pacific Airways (1.6-million tons) and Korean Air (1.5-million tons).