Capacity to and from Beijing Capital Airport accounts for almost 8 million of the available seats in the region, and marks the airport as the second largest in the world in scheduled capacity. Despite being slot constrained, Beijing Airport increased seats and frequencies by 3% in March. Shanghai Airport recorded 17% growth in capacity and grew to a total of 4.6 million seats, a strong performance at another slot-constrained airport in China.

Tokyo Haneda Airport, which moved ahead of London Heathrow in terms of scheduled capacity in February, slipped behind it again in March, to rank as the fourth largest airport in the world with capacity of 7.79 million. Heathrow has 7.89 scheduled seats in March, and Atlanta Hartsfield remains the largest airport in the world with 9.41 million.

"Investments in China's growth have contributed to the recent expansion of services into Africa. The current political events, however, will undoubtedly have an impact on the performance in North Africa in March, with many services cancelled or suspended until more stable political conditions are delivered," said Peter von Moltke, Chief Executive Officer, UBM Aviation.

Leading up to the current political situation in North Africa, growth to and from the region has steadily increased with scheduled capacity in March growing 9% to 7.6 million. Scheduled seat capacity within the region grew 5% to 6.7 million seats.

Worldwide scheduled airline capacity increased 5% in March, year-on-year, with the number of flights increasing 4%. The total number of seats grew to 319.1 million, and flights to 2.6 million.

This data comes from the March 2011 edition of OAG FACTS (Frequency and Capacity Trend Statistics), a monthly report with interactive graphs to display performance trends of specific airports, routes, countries or regions, sourced from OAG's consolidated database of global airline schedules.