Asia-Pacific airlines showed robust growth in July passenger traffic, second only to those in the Middle East, as global demand accelerated during the previous five months.
Asia-Pacific carriers saw 9.8% growth in revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) for international traffic in July, compared with a 13.1% rise recorded by Middle Eastern carriers.
Both exceeded average global growth of 5.9%, according to data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
Demand was stimulated by lower fares which, in turn, were supported by lower oil prices, said Alexandre de Juniac, who recently took office as director-general of the global airline industry body.
"And near record high load factors demonstrate that people want to travel," said the French executive. "But there are some important subplots to the narrative of strong demand. Long-haul travel to Europe, for example, suffered in the aftermath of a spate of terrorist attacks. The mature domestic markets are seeing demand growth stall while Brazil and Russia contract."
The RPK growth achieved in July by Asia-Pacific airlines outstripped an 8.6% rise in capacity, while load factor climbed 0.9 percentage points to 81.7%.
In the analysis, IATA said Asian passengers are putting off travel to Europe in favour of regional trips because of terrorism fears.
While traffic on Asia-Europe routes fell by 0.9% in June, international traffic within Asia rose 8.1% -- a four-month high.
Latin American airlines posted 7.5% growth compared with July 2015, while African airlines experienced a 7.4% rise and North American airlines' traffic climbed 4.8%.
European carriers saw July demand increase by 4.1%, the slowest among the regions, as demand has been affected by the recent terrorist attacks as well as political instability in parts of the region as traffic has grown at an annualised rate of just 1.4% since March.
While passenger demand in July has broadly grown in line with the average of the past 10 years, the new IATA chief cautioned that the industry faces some potential headwinds, including lingering impacts from the series of terrorist attacks and the fragile economic backdrop.