TokyoTomo Travel Guide

The number of international passengers carried by All Nippon Airways for the month of November rose by 10.8 percent to 348,368 compared to the same month a year earlier, posting a positive growth in four months in a row since August 2009. ANA public relations office analyzed that the sluggish travel market, suffering from the Lehman shock since 2008, started to improve gradually as the economy tends to continue to recover, adding that the leisure travel demand, in particular, continues to show a robust growth. As capacity offer, in available seat-kilometer (ASK) terms, was reduced by 8.4 percent, traffic demand, as measured by revenue passenger kilometers (RPK), increased by 13.4 percent, registering a comparatively high seat load factor of 79.6 percent, up by 15.3 percentage points, reported ANA.

The year-on-year traffic increase was seen to all destinations with a two-digit seat load factor improvement. The number of passengers flown on the North America route totalled 68,445, registering a 4.0 percent increase. By destinations in North America, both Los Angeles and San Francisco enjoyed a robust growth especially in Economy class with an increase of approximately 20 percent. The Europe routes saw the highest traffic increase of 13.2 percent to 38,666 passengers. The Asia and Oceania routes also registered a 12.5 percent increase, transporting 241,257 passengers.

For further details, please see the table below.

RPK: Revenue Passenger Kilometers
ASK: Available Seat Kilometers
L/F: Load Factor = RPK/ASK

Source: Travel Vision

Travel Vision Inc. provides information on the travel industry in Japan via "Daily Travel Vision", a Japanese-language e-mail newsletter, and the "Travel Vision" website. There are nearly 110,000 people working in the Japanese travel industry, and Travel Vision is proud to be bringing travel news to more than 30,000 people through Daily Travel Vision.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) reported that the international passenger traffic results worldwide in the month of November 2009 rose by 2.1 percent compared to the same month a year earlier in terms of revenue passenger kilometers (RPK) with an average seat load factor of 75.4 percent, which is a pre-economic crisis level. Although the passenger demand in November rose 6.4 percent compared to the lowest level seen in the first quarter of 2009, it is still 6.4 percent below the peak recorded in the first half of 2008. Also compared to the previous month, the passenger demand actually declined by 0.7 percent in November. “Passenger traffic demand continues to grow,” said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO, but warned that the airlines can not anticipate any significant improvement in yields within the next several months.

By regions, Asia-Pacific carriers saw its demand grow 5.1 percent in terms of RPK (revenue passenger kilometers) with a seat load factor of 76.0 percent, driven by the economic recovery and its growth within the region with the exception of Japan, IATA observed. Latin America carriers also enjoyed an 8.2 percent increase in RPK, revenue passenger kilometers with an average seat load factor of 75.8 percent. Middle East carriers also had an increase of 16.5 percent in RPK, which is the highest in the region. Its growth is attributed to the robust travel demand in Asia and the region’s growing capacity offer, said IATA. The seat load factor of the Middle East carriers averaged 73.9 percent, but available seat kilometers (ASK) soared by 15.4 percent, outpacing the other regions where the growth was either negative or nominal. Meanwhile, European and US carriers posted a decline of 3.0 percent in RPK, revenue passenger kilometers, registering a seat load factor of 74.7 percent and 78.1 percent respectively.

Source: Travel Vision

Travel Vision Inc. provides information on the travel industry in Japan via "Daily Travel Vision", a Japanese-language e-mail newsletter, and the "Travel Vision" website. There are nearly 110,000 people working in the Japanese travel industry, and Travel Vision is proud to be bringing travel news to more than 30,000 people through Daily Travel Vision.

The number of international passengers at Narita International Airport in the month of July declined three percent to 2,769,614. The passenger loads have dropped since April this year suffering from the outburst of the H1N1 swine influenza. Although the month of July has started to show signs of traffic recovery close to the previous year’s level, yet the number of Japanese passengers fell by seven percent to 1,359,557 and that of foreign visitor arrivals declined 16 percent to 726,735.

By destination, Korea boosted its traffic growth by 10 percent year-on-year to 133,400 and Transpacific edged up by one percent to 405,500. On the other hand, Oceania decreased sharply by 35 percent to 43,100, followed by China, down by eight percent to 150,200 and Asia, also down by eight percent to 230,600. For further details, please refer to the table below.

*Number of departing passengers at Narita International Airport by destination during the month of July 2009

Source: Travel Vision

Travel Vision Inc. provides information on the travel industry in Japan via "Daily Travel Vision", a Japanese-language e-mail newsletter, and the "Travel Vision" website. There are nearly 110,000 people working in the Japanese travel industry, and Travel Vision is proud to be bringing travel news to more than 30,000 people through Daily Travel Vision.