Asia-Pacific’s travellers numbered 647 million compared the 638 million who travelled within North America (including domestic markets). By 2013 an additional 217 million travelers are expected to take to the skies within Asia-Pacific.

IATA’s Director General and CEO Giovanni Bisignani said at the start of the Singapore Air Show Aviation Leadership Summit the global aviation industry was expected to reduce losses from $US11.0 billion in 2009 to $US5.6 billion in 2010. The loss reduction was being led by Asia-Pacific’s carriers who were expected to see their losses shrink from US$3.4 billion in 2009 to US$700 million in 2010, Mr Bisignani said.

"Asia-Pacific’s prospects are improving faster than other regions," he said. "Achieving Asia-Pacific’s tremendous potential is contingent upon short-term efforts to battle the impacts of the economic downturn with cost reductions and efficiency gains. Longer-term Asia-Pacific must also face global challenges including environment, security and liberalization."

Asia-Pacific is home to two of the world’s top five airlines in terms of profitability. At the same time, the region’s governments provided over US$10 billion in government bailouts to airlines in the first quarter of the year.

Mr Bisignani said the region’s two biggest growth markets, India and China, faced completely different circumstances. India’s challenge was to reduce costs and improve infrastructure, while China was adjusting to new global trade patterns.

Over the past decade China had replaced Japan as Asia-Pacific’s largest player. Today China’s fleet was 1400 aircraft compared to Japan’s 540. Its domestic market of 5.7 million weekly seats is more than double Japan’s 2.6 million and China’s 1.4 million weekly international seat market was now slightly larger than Japan’s 1.3 million.

In the US, there are three aircraft seats per year for each of the 300 million people who live there. China’s population of 1.3 billion wa served by only 0.3 seats per person and India’s 1.1 billion population had only 0.1 seats available per person. "The global air transport industry will triple in size when Asians travel as much as those in the US," Mr Bisignani said.

"Asia-Pacific’s diversity, dynamism and potential are a great opportunity. Rapidly developing markets are defining aviation’s future."