IATA: Airline Industry Almost Fully Recovers 2019 Levels of Demand

Heading into the last quarter of 2023, the global airline industry has almost fully reached pre-Covid 2019 levels of demand, said the International Air Transport Association (IATA) this week.

Driving the growth, passenger demand continued into August with total traffic rising by 28.4 percent over August 2022 and reaching 95.7 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

International traffic rose by 30.4 percent in August compared to the same month a year ago with all markets recording double-digit percentage gains year on year recouping 88.5 percent of August 2019 levels. In July, international traffic rose by 29.6 percent over July 2022.

Domestic traffic in August increased by 25.4 percent over the same month a year ago and was 9.2 percent above August 2019 levels driven in large part by Chinese domestic demand.

“Demand for air travel performed well in August. For the year to date, international traffic has increased by 50 percent versus last year and ticket sales data show international bookings strengthening for travel in the last part of the year,” said IATA Director General Willie Walsh.

European airlines saw August traffic rise by 13.6 percent over August 2022, capacity by 12.3 percent and load factor by 1.1 percentage points to 86.8 percent.

Carriers in North America recorded an 18.6 percent traffic rise in August 2023 over the year-ago period with capacity up by 17.5 percent and load factor by 0.8 percentage points to 87.7 percent, the highest among the regions for a third consecutive month.

“Heading into the last quarter of the year, the airline industry is nearly fully recovered to 2019 levels of demand,” said Walsh, adding that the focus has been on “meeting the demand by businesses and individuals for connectivity”.