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News 2023


March 2023 IATA Air Passenger Market Analysis 
Published May 4. IATA Economic Reports.

Solid growth in passenger numbers


Highlights

  • Global passenger traffic exhibited strong growth in March, with industry-wide revenue passenger-kilometers (RPKs) increasing by 52.4% year-on-year (YoY) and reaching 88.0% of March 2019 levels.
  • Domestic RPKs were almost fully recovered, only 1.1% below pre-pandemic levels after growing 34.1% YoY.
  • The annual growth in international RPKs was 68.9%, demonstrating resilient demand for air travel. International load factors also climbed to 80.7%, slightly higher than their pre-pandemic level.
  • The reopening of China and easing of travel restrictions has accelerated the recovery of domestic and international traffic. Asia Pacific carriers experienced the fastest annual growth in total RPKs at 158.9%, with a significant increase in international passengers between the region and the rest of the world.

African airlines' passenger traffic rose 71.7% in March

African airlines’ traffic rose 71.7% in March 2023 versus a year ago, the second highest among the regions. March capacity was up 56.2% and load factor climbed 6.5 percentage points to 72.2%, lowest among the regions.


Demand and capacity growth continued in March…

The strong recovery in global passenger traffic continued in March with industry-wide revenuepassenger kilometers (RPKs) increasing 52.4% yearon-year (YoY) and 1.2% month-on-month (MoM) in seasonally-adjusted terms. Download the full report.