The world has been through a lot in the last 30 years, from volcanic eruptions and earthquakes to pandemics, hurricanes and terrorist attacks. No matter how great the challenge, however, the global air travel industry has almost always overcome it, according to aviation intelligence provider OAG, which last week released the results of a new study of the impact that world crises have had on global airline capacity.
Called the "OAG World Crisis Analysis," the study analyzed the impact of events such as terrorism, pandemics and natural disasters on airlines over the past 30 years and found that global airline capacity has grown an average of 3.1 percent per year since 1979. When crises occurred, it found, there was typically a negligible impact in global airline capacity, and a 4 percent drop in capacity at the regional level — which usually recovered within three months. As a result, OAG concluded that air travel is largely immune to regionalized crises.
"The OAG World Crisis Analysis shows how quickly the aviation industry responds and adapts in the face of almost any disaster, which is reassuring news for world markets and the ancillary industries that depend on aviation," said Peter von Moltke, CEO of UBM Aviation, which owns OAG. "Informed by sound historical data and analytics that provide a reliable picture of how external factors affect passenger demand, airlines are able to quickly adjust their flight capacities based on market needs, thus mitigating the impact of crises."
The only crises to truly challenge the aviation industry over the last 30 years were the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the global banking crisis, which caused a 3 and 9 percent decrease in airline capacity, respectively, and took 36 and 24 months to recover. By comparison, recovery took:
• Less than three months for: Iceland's volcanic eruption in 2010, Mexico's swine flu epidemic in 2009, India's drought in 2000, North Korea's flooding in 1995, Bangladesh's cyclone and flooding in 1991, Iran's earthquake in 1990, Armenia's earthquake in 1988, Colombia's volcanic eruption in 1985 and the United States' volcanic eruption in 1980.
• Between three and 12 months for: Japan's earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis in 2011, and Hong Kong's and China's SARS outbreaks in 2003, 2004 and 2005.
"After analyzing OAG's capacity data from the last three decades, we were astonished at the airline industry's resiliency in times of crisis," said Mario Hardy, vice president, Asia Pacific, UBM Aviation. "One would have thought that tragic events in recent years would have dramatically affected air travel capacity for long periods of time, but that simply has not been the case, with only the World Trade Center attacks and Global Banking crises causing major disruptions. Difficult lessons learned from past tragedies have been taken to heart and put to good use by the aviation industry, which is poised to continue growing for the foreseeable future."