For most airlines around the world, the northern summer travel season has been a good one. IATA data released for June showed a 31% increase in year-on-year air traffic, taking the global total to 94.2% of pre-pandemic levels (see pg. 56). There's also been fewer major disruptions related to staff shortages at airports and within security or air traffic control systems. But the good news is only relative to the three preceding worst years in the history of the air transport industry, and it disguises a bleaker reality. First, the air traffic recovery to almost 2019 levels does not show where passenger numbers would have been in 2023 had the pandemic not occurred. The gap between air traffic yearly growth predictions made in 2019 and where the industry now stands remains wide. Back in 2019, the world's airlines carried some 4.5 billion passengers-and were profitable as a collective. IATA forecast then that there would be a 4% increase in traffic in 2020, taking passenger numbers to over 4.7 billion. Had that annual increase trendline continued through 2022, airlines would be expecting to carry well over 5 billion passengers this year versus the 4.35 billion that IATA currently forecasts.
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