U.S. air traffic at 10 year low, won’t get any better with more mergers

Domestic flights in the US will fall to their lowest level in 10 years in August and hubs such as Chicago O’Hare will suffer a 3% drop in traffic capacity as airlines trim capacity in a tough economic climate, data specialists OAG said today…there will be 953,083 fewer seats and 21,401 fewer flights across the continent in August. Only three of North America’s top 10 hubs (San Francisco at 7%, Charlotte at 5% and Toronto at 4%) will show significant growth in seat capacity this month.

Internationally, Middle East region’s key hubs are all experiencing strong year-on-year growth in August, with Abu Dhabi seeing seats increasing by 248,896 (up 17%), Doha by 244,470 (11%) and Bahrain by 114,560 (11%). By far the strongest performer in the region however is Dubai, with 782,544 additional seats and 2,694 additional flight operations compared with August 2011.