Middle East carriers’ traffic growth fell to 4.9% in March compared to a year ago, which was a “considerable slowing” from January and February year-over-year demand growth, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has said in a report.

“This is related more to developments seen last year, while any impacts from the laptop ban will be visible from April results onward. Overall, however, the region has seen the fastest year-on-year growth in international RPKs so far this year, with robust growth on routes to and from Asia and Europe. Capacity increased 9.4%, and load factor dropped 3.1 percentage points to 73.1%,” IATA said.

IATA’s global passenger traffic results for March showed that demand (measured in revenue passenger kilometres, or RPKs) rose 6.8%, compared to the same month a year ago.

Capacity grew 6.1% and load factor climbed by half a percentage point to 80.4%, a record for the month.

March demand growth represented a moderate slowdown relative to performance in February after adjusting for the distortion in the year-to-year comparisons owing to the extra day in February 2016. The imposition of the ban on large electronics in the cabin on certain routes to the US and UK occurred too late in March to have an effect on traffic figures, IATA said.

IATA’s director general and CEO Alexandre de Juniac said, “Strong traffic demand continued throughout the first quarter, supported by a combination of lower fares and a broad-based upturn in global economic conditions. The price of air travel has fallen by around 10% in real terms over the past year and that has contributed to record load factors. We will have to wait another month to see the impact of the laptop ban on demand.”

“The first quarter results are strong. But the last weeks have been challenging to the passenger business. The laptop ban - implemented with next to no notice, no dialogue and no coordination - is testing public confidence in how governments and industry work together to keep flying secure. So, even as rumours persist that the ban will be expanded to other airports and regions, we are calling on governments to work with the industry to find alternatives to keep flying secure without such great inconvenience to our passengers,” said de Juniac.

Concurrently, the recent incident at United Airlines has created calls for more "heavy-handed" government oversight.

“Everyone, including United, agrees there is no justification for what happened to passenger Dr David Dao. United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz has apologised repeatedly and is taking steps to ensure there is never a repeat.

“The video was so shocking that it would be easy for lawmakers and regulators to get caught up in this groundswell of outrage and take steps to limit overselling of flights. However, the management of overbooking has actually worked well for decades. It ensures that scarce capacity is efficiently utilised; we see that in today’s record load factors. Overbooking helps airlines avoid empty seats, and that helps to keep costs - and fares - low. Governments have acknowledged that this ultimately benefits consumers. And if industry-level change is discussed, let’s make sure that there is a transparent fact-based dialogue between industry and regulators. We must be careful to not risk undoing the many benefits unleashed by the competitive forces of deregulation,” said de Juniac.