The recovery of global air demand continued in July with traffic, measured in revenue passenger kilometers, up 26.2 percent year over year, according to the International Air Transport Association.
The total represents 95.6 percent of July 2019 levels, the second-highest such monthly result so far in 2023. May traffic, at 96.1 percent of May 2019 levels, was the highest. June traffic was 94.2 percent recovered. Global capacity was up 23.7 percent versus July 2022, and was at 96.1 percent of July 2019 levels.
All regions in July reported year-over-year demand increases. Asia-Pacific had the highest growth at 67.1 percent. Europe reported the lowest increase at 11.7 percent. Only Latin America and the United States reported demand above 2019 levels, at 3.9 percent and 2.4 percent, respectively.
July domestic demand increased 21.5 percent year over year and was 8.3 percent above July 2019 results. International traffic was up 29.6 percent versus a year prior, reaching 88.7 percent of pre-Covid-19 levels.
"Planes were full during July as people continue to travel in ever greater numbers," IATA director general Willie Walsh said in a statement. "Importantly, forward ticket sales indicate that traveler confidence remains high. And there is every reason to be optimistic about the continuing recovery."
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China reported the highest jump in July domestic traffic at 71.9 percent versus July 2022 and is now 22.5 percent above 2019 levels, according to IATA. Australia is the only country still lagging 2019 domestic demand results, by 3.1 percent. Total domestic capacity was up 16.7 percent year over year, representing a 10.4 percent increase over July 2019 results.
Internationally, the United States was the only region to report higher traffic than July 2019, at 2.1 percent. Asia-Pacific had the highest year-over-year growth at 105.8 percent. Europe's growth was lowest at 13.8 percent. July total international capacity increased 28.9 percent year over year. All regions still lag July 2019 capacity levels, with the U.S. nearly recovered at 0.6 percent below, and Asia-Pacific down the most, at 27.9 percent.
"The northern hemisphere summer is living up to expectations for very strong traffic demand," Walsh said. "While the industry was largely prepared to accommodate a return to pre-pandemic levels of operations, unfortunately, the same cannot be aid for our infrastructure providers. Performance of some of the key air navigations services providers, for example, has been deeply disappointing for many reasons. … Even more worrying, however, are political decisions by some governments—among them Mexico and the Netherlands—to impose capacity cuts at their major hubs that will most certainly destroy jobs and damage local and national economies."
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