According to a report in etravelblackboard.com, with the global airline capacity stabilising last month, analyst can now confirm that capacity growth is once again possible with this month showing a slight lift of 1.4 per cent in seats. Even as July this year marked a full year of capacity cuts and last month saw stability with a marginal 0.2 per cent lift, the Official Airline Guide's (OAG) September 2009 figures reveal that airlines are looking to grow networks once again.

David Beckerman, Market Intelligence Vice President, OAG said, 'The steady upward trend since May this year has been continuing. After 11 months of capacity cutbacks, these figures indicate a growing confidence within the industry that demand for air travel is starting to pick up.' For the month of September this year, even as seats lifted into the growth area, the frequency of services still remained at a contractive rate dropping one per cent, though it is also trending upwards slightly better than the two per cent drop last month. In September 2009 the world's airlines scheduled a total of 2.4 million flights which flew 296.9 million seats.

Regionally, both Europe and North America are still seeing drops in both seats and frequencies, but the dramatic drops have begun to stabilise. Asia interestingly, is seeing services within the region pick up at an extraordinary pace, with eight per cent lift in services and ten per cent lift in seats, while services between other continents are still dipping slightly. Despite this capacity growth, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) is predicting that this year airline losses will amount to USD 11 billion, downgrading its original forecast by another USD two billion.