Recovery to take longer for global airline industry

MANILA, Philippines — The recovery of global passenger traffic and numbers may take longer than  expected as the International Air Transport Association (IATA) revised its outlook given continuing restrictions in international travel.

IATA yesterday released an updated global passenger forecast showing that the recovery in traffic has been slower than had been expected.

According to IATA, global passenger traffic, measured in revenue passenger kilometers, would not return to pre-COVID-19 levels until 2024, a year later than previously projected.

It said recovery to pre-COVID-19 levels of passenger numbers, which will recover faster than traffic, will also slide by a year from 2022 to 2023.

For this year, global passenger numbers are expected to drop by 55 percent compared to 2019, worse from the April forecast of 46 percent contraction.

“What improvement we have seen has been domestic flying. International markets remain largely closed. Consumer confidence is depressed and not helped by the UK’s weekend decision to impose a blanket quarantine on all travelers returning from Spain. And in many parts of the world infections are still rising. All of this points to a longer recovery period and more pain for the industry and the global economy,” IATA director general and CEO Alexandre de Juniac said.

According to IATA, June 2020 passenger traffic foreshadowed the slower-than-expected recovery as it fell 86.5 percent compared to the same period last year.

Asia-Pacific airlines’ June traffic alone plunged  by 97 percent year-on-year, and saw only a little improvement from the 98.1 percent decline in May.

“Domestic traffic improvements notwithstanding, international traffic, which in normal times accounts for close to two-thirds of global air travel, remains virtually non-existent. Most countries are still closed to international arrivals or have imposed quarantines, that have the same effect as an outright lockdown,” de Juniac said.

Locally, the Air Carriers Association of the Philippines said Cebu Pacific, AirAsia Philippines and Philippine Airlines flew around 800,000 passengers in the second quarter  compared to 13.5 million passengers flown in the same period last year. The figure technically covered the month of June only as commercial flights were suspended during the months of April and May.