01 February 2010

A New World Order - Asia Rising

There is clearly a sea change occurring in air travel. The move to LCC has been a phoenomen that has largely passed the USA by. Europe and Asia have adopted the so called "Southwest" model extensively and extended it. The next gen Hybrid Value Carriers (HVCs) such as Easyjet, Air Asia and Jetstar are not to be found in the USA market.

And now we see that the legacy network based airlines are feeling the pinch. IATA coming off the worst year in its history no longer fully reflects air travel. Rather the new generation of these airlines represent where air travel is going. And consumers are lapping it up.

Two recent pronouncements out of IATA confirm this. Firstly the Asia market has now overtaken the US as the world's largest market. And then there is the news that IATA thinks it is going to take three years for the market to recover.

Right in time for the next recession.

Yes the world is definitely changing....

Cheers

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