Air passenger traffic continued a strong recovery during September, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has reported. (IATA is the global representative body for the airline industry.) In year-on-year (y-o-y) terms, total global air passenger traffic in September was up 57%, and had reached 73.8% of the level recorded in September 2019, before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Regarding domestic air passenger traffic only, in September this was up 6.9%, y-o-y, and was at 81% of its level in September 2019. International air traffic jumped 122.2% y-o-y, with all markets reporting strong growth. However, it should be noted that the restoration of domestic air travel operations started significantly earlier than the restart of international flights, and the international air passenger travel recovery still lagged behind the domestic recovery. Thus, international traffic in September was at 69.9% of its September 2019 levels.
“Even with economic and geopolitical uncertainties, the demand for air transport continues to recover ground,” highlighted IATA director-general Willie Walsh. “The outlier is still China with its pursuit of a zero-Covid strategy keeping borders largely closed and creating a demand roller-coaster ride for its domestic market, with September being down 46.4% on the previous year. That is in sharp contrast to the rest of [the] Asia-Pacific, which, despite China’s dismal performance, posted a 464.4% increase for international traffic compared to the year-ago period.”
In terms of total (international plus domestic) air passenger demand, the best performing of IATA’s regions was the Middle East, with an increase of 138.6% (this, and all subsequent figures, being y-o-y). In second place came Africa, at 89.2%, followed by Europe at 60.4%. Fourth place is taken by the Asia-Pacific (51.9%), then Latin America (47.8%) and finally North America (39.7%).
Regarding international air passenger traffic, as mentioned above, the best performing region was the Asia-Pacific, at 464.8%. Middle Eastern airlines occupied second place, at 149.7%, while North America ranked third, at 128.9%. Latin American carriers achieved growth of 99.4% in their international air passenger traffic, followed by their counterparts in Africa (90.5%) and lastly Europe (78.3%).
The six major domestic air travel markets that IATA regularly published data on were Australia, Brazil, China, India, Japan and the US. Among these, Australia recorded a 276% jump, followed by Japan at 127.9%. India reported a 42.6% increase, the US was up 16.8%, and Brazil by 14.9%. As already mentioned, China recorded a fall of 46.4%.