The aviation sector reached more than 99% of November’s traffic for benchmark year 2019, according to the latest data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
Domestic doing better than international
November 2023’s total traffic figures (measured in revenue passenger kilometres, or RPKs) were up 29.7% on the same period 2022. Overall, domestic market traffic for the month was up 34.8% on the previous November, and 6.7% higher than 2019, while international traffic was up 26.4% on the previous year but still down on 2019 by 5.5%.
Although all regions saw year-on-year improvement, the Asia-Pacific region had the strongest, up 63.8%. China saw a colossal ramp up (+ 272%) thanks to its eventual lifting of Covid-19 travel restrictions. The US also had a good month, boosted by mass Thanksgiving travel demand. The six domestic markets in the IATA report account for 31.3% of global RPKs.
After Asia-Pacific airlines, African airlines saw the steepest rise in RPKs (+22.1%) and the biggest drop in load factor (-4.3%). Latin American airlines’ November traffic meanwhile was 20% up compared to the same month in 2022. Their November capacity climbed 17.7% and load factor increased 1.7 percentage points to 84.9%, the highest of any region.
Economic headwinds no deterrent
IATA’s Director General, Willie Walsh hailed the data as proof that “economic headwinds are not deterring people from taking to the skies.” “We are moving ever closer to surpassing the 2019 peak year for air travel,” he said. “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.”
“Simply not enough SAF”
Walsh’s “bottom line” commentary on the industry focused on aviation’s attempts to transition away from the use of fossil fuels to avoid the worst effects of climate change. In an impassioned plea, Walsh put the onus on governments to step up: “Airlines don’t need convincing. They agreed to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and every drop of SAF ever made in that effort has been bought and used. There simply is not enough SAF being produced. So we look to 2024 to be the year when governments follow-up on their own declarations and finally deliver comprehensive policy measures to incentivize the rapid scaling-up of SAF production,” said Walsh.
