Global air travel at 99% of pre covid level, says IATA

New Delhi: The latest air travel data for November has revealed that global air travel has reached 99% of pre covid levels with Asia Pacific leading the recovery path, International Air Transport Association has said. International traffic rose 26.4% as compared to November 2022 and the Asia Pacific region continued to report the strongest year over year increase, as per IATA.

Asia Pacific airlines witnessed a 63.8% rise in November traffic compared to November 2022, which was the strongest year over year rate among the regions. The capacity for Asia Pacific airlines rose 58.0% and the load factor or capacity utilisation was up 2.9 percentage points to 82.6%. IATA measures air traffic in Revenue Passenger Kilometres (RPK), a key figure that indicates the number of kilometers travelled by paying passengers.

“We are moving ever closer to surpassing the 2019 peak year for air travel. Economic headwinds are not deterring people from taking to the skies. International travel remains 5.5% below pre pandemic levels but that gap is rapidly closing. And domestic markets have been above their pre pandemic levels continuously since April," Willie Walsh, IATA’s director general said.

Simultaneously, IATA noted that the domestic traffic for November 2023 was also up 34.8% compared to November 2022 and 6.7% above November 2019 level. “Growth was particularly strong in China at more than 272% as it recovered from the covid travel restrictions that were still in place a year ago. US domestic travel, benefiting from strong Thanksgiving holidays demand, reached a new high, expanding at 9.1% over November 2019," IATA added.

Internationally, African airlines also showed strong recovery in November at 22.1% growth, Latin American airlines at 20%, then Middle Eastern airlines at 18.6%, European airlines at 14.8%, and North American carriers at 14.3%. Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world to know more.

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