The detrimental effects on Middle East airlines of travel ban efforts by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump and moves over the summer to restrict electronic devices larger than a cell phone on flights to and from certain countries in the region have begun to lift, and traffic has returned to roughly a 7-percent year-over-year rate of growth. Granted, the industry hasn’t yet resumed the double-digit expansion rates at which it finished 2016, and intensifying competition to fill still rapidly growing capacity among Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways has resulted in some pressure on yields and overall economic performance. Meanwhile, oil prices remain stubbornly low, on one hand easing the airlines’ cost burden but hurting the wider economies on which they depend for their existence. Nevertheless, the region’s airlines have proved as resilient as ever amid the continuing sectarian conflict and diplomatic crises under which lesser enterprises might have succumbed long ago.
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