IATA director general Willie Walsh
KUALA LUMPUR: Total air passenger traffic in June 2023 grew by 31% year-on-year (y-o-y) as the post-Covid recovery momentum continued, reaching 94.2% of the pre-pandemic levels, says the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
The association said that for the first half of 2023, global revenue passenger-kilometres (RPKs) was up 47.2% compared to the year-ago period, although recovery trends varied across regions.
“Domestic traffic increased 27.2% y-o-y in June, surpassing pre-pandemic RPKs by 5.1%. This result was driven by the robust performance of major domestic markets,” it said in its latest passenger market analysis report.
IATA said total international RPKs grew 33.7% from June 2022 levels, maintaining the strong recovery seen this year.
“Notably, Asia-Pacific carriers sustained their growth momentum, buoyed by the region’s resilient air travel demand,” it added.
IATA director-general Willie Walsh said the northern summer travel season got off to a strong start in June with double-digit demand growth and average load factors topping 84%.
“Planes are full, which is good news for airlines, local economies, and travel and tourism-dependent jobs. All benefit from the industry’s ongoing recovery,” he said in a statement.
Asia-Pacific airlines had a 128.1% increment in June 2023 traffic compared to June 2022, easily the largest percentage gain among the regions.
Capacity climbed 115.6%, and the load factor increased by 4.6 percentage points to 82.9%.
Walsh said as strong as travel demand has been, it arguably could be even stronger.
“Demand is outrunning capacity growth. Well-documented problems in the aviation supply chain mean that many airlines have not taken delivery of all the new, more environmentally friendly aircraft they had expected, while numerous aircraft are parked awaiting critical spare parts,” he said.
Moreover, he said for the fleet that is in service, some air navigation service providers are failing to deliver the requisite capacity and resilience to meet travel demand. — Bernama
