Research Trends and Results

Study of International Air-Passenger Traffic in Eastand Southeast Asia
YAMADA Yukihiro, Research Engineer
INOUE Gaku, Senior Researcher
ONO Masahiro, HeadAirport Planning Division, Airport Department
International Air-Passenger Traffic, Low-Cost Carrier

1. Introduction
The capability of Japanese airports, including those in
the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, must be enhanced because
one of their most important purposes is to enhanceinternational competitiveness by facilitating international
air traffic according to the New Growth Strategy “Japan
Revitalization Strategy” (cabinet decision on June 14,2013). Because air-traffic demand forecasting will beessential to formulate aviation policy, several studies
related to traffic demand forecasting have been conductedin the Airport Planning Division. The current method
does not take into account traffic induced by the impactof the entry of LCCs entry. An analysis of the aviation
market in East and Southeast Asia, where many LCCs
started business, would play an important role in
improving forecasting. So we analyzed recent
international air-passenger traffic in East and Southeast
Asia during 2005-2012.
There are no statistics which directly captureinternational air-passenger traffic. Instead, we used
Capstats statistics (statistics of seat capacity provided byRDC Aviation) which accurately represent the current
state of the aviation market in East and Southeast Asia.
2. Major Findings
The increase in traffic demand in East and Southeast
Asia is remarkable and this trend is particularly strong in
the ASEAN sphere. The increase in supply by LCCs isalso remarkable. The following are major findings of thisstudy.
① Total seat capacity inside all East and Southeast
Asia in 2012 is 250 million. Since 2005, it has
increased by 42.9% (the annual rate was 5.2%). In
2011-2012, it increased by 10.1%.
② The growth rate of seat capacity on the routes
between Japan, Korea and China is lower than thatof total seat capacities among East and Southeast
Asian countries.
③ China has had the highest seat capacity in East andSoutheast Asia since 2007. Seat capacity from/toChina in 2012 has increased by 54.2%.
④ Regarding the growth rate of the seat capacity
from/to respective airports inside East and Southeast

Asia during 2005-2012, the annual growth rates inHong Kong, Bangkok, Tokyo and Macau were lessthan 3.0%, which was less than the average of all
East and Southeast Asia. On the other hand, theannual growth rates in Singapore, Seoul, Kuala
Lumpur, Manila and Jakarta were more than 5.8%.
The route between Hong Kong and Singapore has
the largest seating capacity of respective air-routes
in the year 2005-2012. On the Jakarta-Singapore
and Kuala Lumpur-Singapore routes, LCCs’ seatingcapacity has significantly increased since 2009, andtotal seating capacity has also been boosted
significantly (Figure).

⑤Figure Seat Capacity between Kuala Lumpur andSingapore
6,000,000

5,000,000

Seat Capacity(Key words)

4,000,000
3,000,000

2,000,000
1,000,000
0

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

LCC
Other Airlines
Total

3. Concluding Remarks
We could analyze and catch the trend of single trackroutes and LCC’s routes which could never be analyzed
thoroughly in previous studies. We are planning toconduct a similar study when other trends emerge in thenear future.
[Sources]
TECHNICAL NOTE of NILIM No.744
http://www.nilim.go.jp/lab/bcg/siryou/tnn/tnn0744.htm