Air transport group calls on governments to examine sector’s regulation as growth falls awayPost by Cameron Davidson on 31st December 2010 in Shipping, Industry news Growth in air cargo traffic slowed substantially in
November, with the amount of goods carried only rising thanks to very strong
performance in developing markets.
That was the conclusion of the International Air Transport
Association (IATA) from its latest traffic figures for November, released
yesterday.
They showed that volumes of air freight have fallen by seven
per cent in the six months since their peak in May, bringing the overall annual
rate of increase down to 5.4 per cent, and IATA took the opportunity to call
for governments to rethink their regulation of the sector to create conditions
in which growth can continue.
“Growth is slowing towards normal historical levels”, said
IATA director general and CEO, Giovanni Bisignani.
He added that slower traffic growth would have an adverse
impact on carriers’ profits. “More hard work will be needed to in the new year
to achieve sustainable levels of profitability,” Bisignani said.
Africa was the only region which did not see its
year-on-year traffic growth fall dramatically in November, and Bisignani added
that, if traffic levels were to be sustained, governments across the world
needed to examine their approaches to regulating air traffic.
“It’s time to evaluate a long list of government imposed
industry handicaps, including excessive taxation, outdated ownership
restrictions, over-regulation where market forces could do better,
under-investment in infrastructure and generally poor regulation of monopoly
suppliers,” he said.
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