Global air traffic now 75% pre-COVID level – IATA

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) Tuesday said air travel recovery continued in November 2022 with traffic climbing to 75.3% of 2019 levels.

Total traffic in November 2022 (measured in revenue passenger kilometres or RPKs) rose 41.3% compared to November 2021, according to IATA.

Daily Trust reports that global air traffic continues to improve but it has not reached the 2019 level, before the advent of COVID-19, when the industry was shut.

For the African regions, African airlines had an 83.5% rise in November RPKs versus a year ago while in November 2022, capacity was up 48.4% and the load factor climbed 14.2 percentage points to 74.3%, the lowest among regions.

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International traffic rose 85.2% versus November 2021. The Asia-Pacific continued to report the strongest year-over-year results with all regions showing improvement compared to the prior year.

The November 2022 international RPKs reached 73.7% of the November 2019 levels.

The report indicated that domestic traffic for November 2022 was up 3.4% compared to November 2021 with travel restrictions in China continuing to dampen the global result.

Total November 2022 domestic traffic was at 77.7% of the November 2019 level.

IATA’s Director General Willie Walsh, while commenting on the global traffic report said, “Traffic results in November reinforce that consumers are thoroughly enjoying the freedom to travel.

“Unfortunately, the reactions to China’s reopening of international travel in January remind us that many governments are still playing science politics when it comes to COVID-19 and travel.

“Epidemiologists, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and others have said that the reintroduction of testing for travellers from China can do little to contain a virus that is already present around the world. And China’s objections to these policy measures are compromised by their own pre-departure testing requirements for people travelling to China.

“Governments should focus on using available tools to manage COVID-19 effectively—including improved therapeutics and vaccinations—rather than repeating policies that have failed time and again over the last three years.”