In its latest edition of the World Air Transport Statistics, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has unveiled the top trends in the aviation industry for 2024.
This year’s report, which includes data from over 240 international airlines, includes a detailed breakdown of scheduled passenger and cargo traffic demand, scheduled passenger and cargo capacity, an overview of the global airline fleet, and top airport pairs, alongside information on operating costs and revenue, aircraft utilisation and number of airline employees.
Premium class grows
According to the IATA’s findings, premium class travel, which includes business and first class, grew by 11.8% in 2024. As the global economy, travel grew by 11.5%, which is a remarkable trend. Overall, 116.9 million people travelled in premium class in 2024, amounting to 6% of the total international passenger count. This could mean that over time, with the surge in premium leisure, an even larger part of airlines’ profits could come from premium ticket sales.
While Europe remained the largest market for international premium travel with 39.3 million travellers, the percentage of year-on-year growth was most noticeable in the Asia Pacific region. Premium travel grew by 22.8%, good for 21 million premium passengers. However, that percentage remained below the 28.6% growth of the economy’s travel. Premium travellers as a percentage of all travellers were highest in the Middle East at 14.7%.
Most popular aircraft
Narrow-body aircraft from Boeing and Airbus were the most used aircraft in 2024. Boeing 737 aircraft flew 10 million flights throughout the year, with 2.4 trillion Available Seat Kilometres (ASKs). The top three were completed by the Airbus A320 with 7.9 million flights and 1.7 trillion ASKs, and the Airbus A321 with 3.4 million flights and 1.1 trillion ASKs.
Biggest markets
With 876 million passengers in 2024, the US once again appears to be the world’s biggest aviation market, with a 5.2% year-on-year growth. However, with 741 million passengers and an 18.7% growth, China comes in second and might soon even take over the first spot. The UK comes in third with 261 million passengers and a 7.3% year-on-year growth.
Most popular routes
The IATA report also looked into the matter of the world’s busiest airport pairs, showing the most popular global routes. Overall, the Asia Pacific led the ranking. The Jeju-Seoul duo came in first, with 13.2 million passengers flying between the two airports in 2024. Sapporo-Tokyo Haneda (9.2 million) and Fukuoka-Tokyo Haneda (9 million) completed the top of the ranking. Only one airport pair in the top ten was not located in the Asia Pacific region: Jeddah-Riyadh (6.3 million).
Elsewhere in the world, numbers were quite a bit lower. Bogota-Medellin was the busiest route in Latin America with 3.8 million passengers, Cape Town-Johannesburg led the ranking in Africa with 3.3 million passengers, New York John F. Kennedy International Airport-Los Angeles was the busiest route in North America with 2.2 million passengers, and Barcelona-Palma de Mallorca was Europe’s top airport pair with 2 million passengers.
