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News 2023


May 2023 IATA Air Passenger Market Analysis 
Published July 5. IATA Economic Reports.

Solid traffic growth


Highlights

  • Air Global air passenger demand recorded solid growth in May, with industry-wide revenue passenger-kilometers (RPKs) increasing by 39.1% year-on-year (YoY) and reaching 96.1% of pre-pandemic levels.
  • For the second month in a row, domestic RPKs outperformed their pre-Covid levels, rising 5.3% above 2019 RPKs.
  • International RPKs continued to expand in May, growing by 40.9% YoY and restoring 90.8% of their 2019 levels. All regions experienced a positive evolution in international traffic demand, while Asia Pacific continued to stand out with 156.7% annual growth.
  • Carriers in the Middle East and North America fully recovered their international passenger traffic, with RPKs 17.2% and 1.8% above 2019 levels, respectively.

African airlines' passenger traffic improves

African airlines’ traffic rose 45.2% in May 2023 versus a year ago. May capacity was up 44.2% and the load factor edged up 0.5 percentage points to 68.8%, the lowest among the regions. Load factors for airlines in Africa improved from the previous month, but they continued to be the lowest across all regions.


Demand and capacity continued to expand in May…  

The annual growth in industry-wide revenue passenger-kilometers (RPKs) was 39.1% in May. While this expansion was 6.7 percentage points (ppts) slower than the previous month, growth in global traffic continues to signal a resilient recovery momentum. Seasonally adjusted RPKs rose by 2.8% month-on-month, maintaining the increasing traffic trend established in previous months. 
    Global available seat-kilometers (ASKs) and passenger load factors (PLF) also increased by 35% and 2.4ppts, respectively, compared to a year ago. At 81.8%, May marked the first month that the global passenger load factor was fully restored to 2019 evels. Moreover, the available seat capacity recovered to 96.1% of pre-crisis levels, a 3.6 ppts climb compared to April and the highest recovery level achieved so far. Download the full report...