The most important inter-regional growth patterns of 2011 are led by Asia. Traffic between Asia and Europe, and between Asia and North America, grew by 9%. Traffic between Asia and the Middle East grew 6% reaching 38 million travellers in the year.

Compared with the previous year, 2% fewer passengers travelled between Africa and Europe in 2011; this was the only region pair with a significant traffic flow decrease over the period.

Traffic between North America and Europe remains the busiest inter-regional flow with over 60 million passengers in 2011, followed by Asia and Europe with over 53 million, and Latin America and North America with 47 million passengers.

In terms of connecting traffic, over 50% of all passengers in the triangle between Asia, Europe and North America change aircraft at least once. On the other hand, only 7% of all passengers travelling within Asia travel with a connecting flight, compared to 10% in Europe and 31% in North America.

The largest airports in Asia have a lower percentage of connecting traffic than the North American and European hubs. The average connecting rate of the 10 busiest airports in Asia is 19% compared with 32% for the top 10 hubs in Europe and 45% in North America.

The 2011 country statistics reveal that the strongest growth in absolute passengers is led by the BRIC countries. China registered an additional 19 million in 2011 than 2010, Brazil 12 million, India eight million and Russia six million. Indonesia was the fifth strongest growth market with an additional five million passengers in 2011.

Brazil (17%), India (13%) and Russia (15%) also featured in the top 10 fastest-growing countries by percentage growth. Chile (21%), the Philippines (15%) and Indonesia (11%) are also among the fastest growing travel markets. Egypt and Japan are among the fastest shrinking markets, probably due to the Arab Spring and the tsunami.

                               Chart: Countries with highest % growth in passengers between 2010 and 2011

The strongest traffic in between cities takes place within the same country. From the world’s top 10 inter-city routes, seven are within the domestic borders of Asian countries, out of which three are in Japan.  In terms of volume the route between Jeju and Seoul is the most important (almost 10 million passengers) followed by Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo (circa 8 million passengers).

                                                                      Chart: Top world inter-city routes• Amadeus Total Demand looks at trends in worldwide passenger demand between regions, countries and specific airports, comparing the full 2011 passenger volumes with 2010 data. All figures relate to passengers travelling between a given origin and final destination airport, irrespective of the number of connecting stops.