Further Fallible Forecasts

24th April, 2009

The government published new forecasts of UK aviation passenger demand and CO2 emissions in Jan 09.

‘Unconstrained’ demand for air travel is now forecast to reach 465 million passengers per annum (mppa) by 2030. (Unconstrained demand is the demand that would materialise is there were no constriants on airport expansion. )

The figure of 465m is a significant reduction compared to the 500 mppa on which the Air Transport White Paper was based.

A critique of these forecasts has been produced by Brendon Sewill for Airport Watch. AEF does not necessarily agree with all the conclusions; we will be studying the forecasts further. But the issues raised are all highly relevant and the report is a valuable contribution to the crucial issue of demand which underpins the government policy on airport and  avation growth. 

See Further Fallible Forecasts (Word doc, 5 pages).