And while the Middle East may be the strongest market, its lead is being chipped away. “The Middle East and Asia-Pacific will continue to lead among all regions, with RPK growth of 9% and 7%, respectively,” says Jonathan Root, vice president at Moody’s. Latin America and Europe are both predicted to see an acceleration in RPK growth of 0.5 and 0.2 percentage points respectively, taking both to 4%. Even so, the Middle East is still expected to add the most new capacity this year, with the number of seats growing by 10%. “Demand growth will modestly trail capacity growth across all markets,” says Root.

Source: Forbes January 17, 2017 12:37 UTC