By IANS,
Brussels : Air passenger traffic between the European Union and India grew much faster in the last two years as compared to that with China, according to figures released here.
Air traffic between the EU and India went up by 57.2 percent in 2006 compared to 2004. It increased by 25.6 percent in 2006 against 2005, according to EUAsia News quoting figures released by Eurostat, the EU’s statistical bureau, this week.
Traffic between the EU and China, on the other hand, rose by 38.3 percent in 2006 over 2004.
From the EU’s viewpoint, the fastest growing region in 2006 was the Indian subcontinent recording a growth of 21.5 percent compared with 2005. This was followed by East Africa with a 12.6 percent growth and the Near and Middle East with 9.1 percent growth.
In 2006, 5.1 million air passengers were transported between EU and India and the figure in the first half of 2007 was 2.85 million passengers.
The total number of passengers transported by air between airports inside the EU and airports outside the EU reached 250 million in 2006, up five percent from 2005.
Of all world regions, America was the biggest partner region of the EU with 77.5 million air passengers accounting for 31 percent of all outside-EU air passenger traffic.
This was closely followed by Europe – other than the 27 EU member states – with 76.4 million passengers.