Passenger traffic in July remained strong, with both domestic and international segments showing year-over-year gains and continuing improvement compared with 2019 levels, according to the International Air Transport Association.
Total July traffic, measured in revenue passenger kilometers, was up 58.8 percent year over year. This figure represents a 74.6 percent recovery of pre-pandemic levels, improving from the 70.8 percent recovery level in June and 68.7 percent in May. Total capacity as measured in available seat kilometers was up 37.3 percent year over year, with the industrywide airline passenger load factor up 11.3 percentage points to 83.5 percent, the second month in a row it was above 80 percent.
“July’s performance continued to be strong, with some markets approaching pre-Covid levels,” IATA director general Willie Walsh said in a statement. “And that is even with capacity constraints in parts of the world that were unprepared for the speed which people returned to travel. There is still more ground to cover, but this is an excellent sign as we head into the traditionally slower autumn and winter quarters in the Northern Hemisphere.”
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Domestic traffic in July was up 4.1 percent from July 2021 and down 13.1 percent compared with July 2019. Total domestic capacity was up 3.4 percent year over year, with domestic load factor gaining 0.5 percentage points to 81.5 percent. Brazil’s traffic reached pre-pandemic levels, showing a 0.9 percent increase from July 2019, according to IATA, while traffic in the United States was 91.6 percent recovered for the month. China was the only market to show a year-over-year decrease in traffic and capacity. It is the furthest behind in recovery, at 69.5 percent compared with July 2019.
International traffic increased 150.6 percent year over year, with capacity at 80.2 percent and load factor up 23.9 percentage points to 85 percent. Asia-Pacific showed the strongest growth at 528.8 percent, the region's fifth consecutive month of growth. All the other reported regions showed a slight pull-back in traffic compared with June 2022. North American carriers reached 87.3 percent of international July 2019 traffic, and the region is “the best performing of all regions for this metric,” according to IATA. Europe was next at 79.7 percent.
“Aviation continues to recover as people take advantage of their restored freedom to travel,” Walsh said. “The pandemic showed that aviation is not a luxury but a necessity in our globalized and interconnected world.”
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