Asia-Pacific airlines' passenger numbers in June rose 85 percent from a year earlier to 10.3 million as the industry continued its recovery from a SARS-induced slowdown, an aviation association said Friday.
The 17 airlines based in the region filled 76.6 percent of available seats during the month, up from 66.6 percent the previous year, the Association of Asia-Pacific Airlines (AAPA) said.
Revenue passenger kilometre climbed 65.4 percent and freight tonne kilometres jumped 17.6 percent, the third straight month of double-digit growth in these key indices of airline profitability.
The association said the figures compared with a low base last year when travel across the region was hit by the outbreak of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic.
"We are now past the period where the most severe traffic decline was experienced in 2003 so we see moderating percentage increases in (the rest of) 2004," AAPA director-general Richard Stirland said in a statement.
He said the load factor growth was impressive, noting that it was 2.3 percentage points higher than that of 2002 - which was unaffected by SARS - despite an 11 percent rise in seat capacity since then.
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