The page of the covid crisis seems definitively passed in the global sky. According to figures from the World Air Transport Association (IATA), traffic last August was 95.7% of that observed in August 2019. This represents an increase of 28.4% compared to August 2022.
In the case of domestic flights, traffic in August is even higher than in the same month of 2019, at +9.2%, particularly thanks to the strong recovery of domestic flights in China.
As for international flights, there is still some way to go to return to pre-covid levels since traffic stands at 88.5% of August 2019.
“So far this year, international traffic is up 50% compared to last year and ticket sales data shows that international bookings have strengthened during the latter part of the year,” comments Willie Walsh, Director IATA General.
Domestic flights above 2019 traffic
Throughout the entire year, IATA has 4.35 billion passengers, compared to 4.54 in 2019. Enough to generate a whopping $9.8 billion in profits for the planet’s airlines, compared to accumulated losses of 183,000 million between 2020 and 2022.
This return to normality and the prospects of an annual traffic increase of 5% encourage companies (especially Asian ones) to invest massively in the renewal of their fleets. For several months, orders have been increasing, mainly for single-aisle aircraft, both for Airbus (which signed its largest historical order this year with 500 IndiGo aircraft) and for Boeing.
A few days ago, Air France-KLM placed a “major” order for 50 long-haul Airbus A350 aircraft. For the French national airline alone, this renewal represents “an investment of one billion euros per year,” reveals Anne Rigail, general director of Air France.
Source: BFM TV
