Domestic air travel now at 85% of pre-COVID level: IATA
The Hindu
International air traffic in 2022 climbed 152.7% versus 2021 to attain 62.2% of 2019 levels
Indian domestic air travel has significantly improved as it touched 85.7% of pre-COVID 2019 levels in the year 2022, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA). IATA announced earlier this month that the recovery in air travel continued in December, 2022 and was signed up for the whole year compared with 2021.
In India, with concerns of new COVID-19 outbreaks fading, airlines saw a significant improvement in domestic air travel as well as revenue. India's domestic RPKs (revenue passenger kilometres) rose 48.8% last year compared with 2021, IATA said. More significantly, December 2022 saw air traffic almost matching December 2019's mark, falling shy by just 3.6%.
In 2022, Indian domestic ASK (available seat kilometres) rose 30.1% compared with a year ago. For the other Asia Pacific domestic markets, domestic traffic measured by RPK rebounded by 75.9% in Japan compared with 2021 to achieve 74.1% of 2019 levels.
December RPKs for the domestic market were 8.7% under those of December 2019. Australia experienced a similar rebound, with RPKs recovering to 81.2% of 2019 levels.
With China still very much under COVID-19 restrictions in 2022, it is therefore not surprising that in the middle kingdom which has 6.5% of the world's domestic passenger market, RPK and ASK fell 39.8% and 35.2% respectively compared with 2021.
Globally, total passenger traffic (domestic plus international) in 2022 climbed 64.4% compared with a year ago with full-year global passenger traffic at 68.5% of pre-pandemic levels.
In December 2022, total traffic increased by 39.7% compared to the same month in 2021 to reach 76.9% of December 2019's level.
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