China, India seen as important markets to help aviation industry

Singapore: China and India are seen as important markets to help the aviation industry turn around. According to industry-watchers, premium carriers have been taking a hit as companies cut down on business travel. But they note that Asian carriers will remain more resilient than their counterparts elsewhere.
Businesses are thinking twice when it comes to sending their executives to out of town meetings.
The number of passengers flying in either business or first class is estimated to have dropped by about 30 per cent in Asia, the Pacific and Europe during the first quarter of this year.
And for the airlines, this translates into a 15 per cent hit to their bottomline.
At an industry conference in Singapore on Monday, some experts said most airlines are going to have to buckle down in the year ahead as more tourists look to travel short haul, or take budget airlines to cut costs.
Peter Harbison, executive chairman, Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, said: “We've seen already before all this happened, a trend toward more short haul tourism as well as air travel and what we are seeing now is more of that as. It is cheaper to do it with short haul where there is a lot of competition with low cost carriers that is the market that will stay stronger then any of the others.
"The premium market in the first quarter of 2009 has been down for most of Asia. The Pacific and Europe has been down about one third. That's first and business class travel which is a massive massive drop - we've never seen anything like that before."
The premium carrier market is expected to continue to decrease in the year ahead with those in Europe and the US the worst affected. But the blow in Asia is expected to be buffered by increasing affluence in China and India.
11/05/09 Rachel Kelly/Channel NewsAsia

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Categories: Foreign May 2009, Indian Aviation- In General May 2009