International aviation body representing global airlines, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has revised its earlier estimations regarding the timeframe to retain pre-coronavirus level global air traffic from 2023 to 2024.
The association cites slow virus containment in the US and developing economies as one of the most prominent reasons for the same.
“Although developed economies outside of the US have been largely successful in containing the spread of the virus, renewed outbreaks have occurred in these economies, and in China,” the IATA noted.
“Furthermore there is little sign of the virus containment in many important emerging economies, which in combination with the US, represent 40% of global air travel markets,” IATA added.
The body suggested reduced corporate travel and weak consumer confidence with people preferring to postpone travel citing as additional reasons contributing towards the slow recovery.
IATA expects onboarding to decrease by 55 percent in 2020 compared to 2019 and emphasized that even if passenger numbers could rebound by 62 percent in 2021, it will still be down by nearly a third compared to 2019.
The global association does not expect full recovery to 2019 levels in passenger numbers before 2024.
Furthermore, as domestic markets are reopening faster than international markets, RPKs (Revenue Passenger Kilometres) will recover even more slowly, with passenger traffic expected to return to pre-crisis levels in 2024, also one year later than previously forecast.
International traffic shrank by 96.8 percent in June compared to the same month last year. European carriers, meanwhile, saw demand collapse 96.7 percent in June versus a year ago following a 98.7 percent decline in May.
“Scientific advances in fighting COVID-19 including the development of a successful vaccine could allow a faster recovery. However, at present there appears to be more downside risk than upside to the baseline forecast,” the IATA stressed.
According to Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s Director General and CEO, international traffic account for two-thirds of global air travel in normal times. Summer, which is usually the business season is providing little upswing because many countries remain closed or have imposed “demand-killing quarantines”. For airlines, this is bad news that points to the need for governments to continue with relief measures — financial and otherwise,” he added.
The Director-General also called for governments to implement measures to boost confidence in air travel including “accurate, fast, scalable and affordable” testing and contact tracing measures.
