1. Emirates Airlines maintained its leadership in ASK, with over two-fold its nearest competitor, not taking into account its low cost sister airline, flydubai.
   
   
2. Once again Emirates and flydubai both mark one of the highest growth rates.
   
   
3. Three low cost carriers Bahrain Air, flydubai and Jazeera Airways each mark around 40 % growth over the same period last year. While Air Arabia and RAK Airways are experiencing a modest 7.5% and 12.1% growth rate respectively over the same period last year.
   
   
4. Tunis Air and EgyptAir are showing signs of recovery and each marking a healthy double-digit growth rate over the same period despite their unresolved domestic issues.
   
   
5. Syria Arab Airlines has been hit hardest, operating at close to 11% of ASK capacity from the same period last year.
   
   
6. Yemen Airways and Felix Airways both Yemeni carriers are experiencing double-digit negative growth.
   
   
7. Saudi Arabian Airlines, Gulf Air and Royal Jordan are experiencing single-digit negative growth each, this may be attributed to their announced route restructuring and optimization plans.
   
   
8. Qatar Airways has a single-digit growth over the same period last year despite its aggressive route expansion in 2012.
   
   
9. Both legacy national carriers Kuwait Airways and Oman Air are experiencing a modest 7.8% and 11.3% growth rate respectively over the same period last year.
   
   

The importance of ASK it's a reflection of an airline flight's passenger carrying capacity, equal to the number of seats available multiplied by the distance flown (in kilometers). An available seat kilometer is the fundamental unit of production for a passenger-carrying airline. A unit in this case is one seat, available for sale, flown one kilometer. 

Published with the kind permission of Innovata