Global Air Traffic Recovered 68.7% of Pre-Pandemic Levels in May – SchengenVisaInfo.com

[Editor's note: While this article is not about “human trafficking,” it is indicative of the level of travel allowed at this point in time, and how tourism is being affected. – PBJ Learning]

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has revealed that air traffic is recovering, with the rates in May being 83.1 per cent higher than in 2021.

According to a press release by IATA, the main cause for the increase can be attributed to the strong recovery of international arrivals, while domestic traffic, indicating tourists within a country, was up by 0.2 per cent, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.

In addition, the domestic traffic has reached 76.7 per cent of May 2019 levels, while international traffic rose by 325.8 per cent higher than in 2021. May 2022 international reached 64.1 per cent of May 2019 levels.

“Many major international route areas – including within Europe and the Middle East-North America routes – are already exceeding pre-COVID-19 levels. Completely removing all COVID-19 restrictions is the way forward, with Australia being the latest to do so this week,” Willie Walsh, IATA's Director-General, said.

He also pointed out the only exception to the travel rebound is China, which saw a plunging 73.2 per cent fall in domestic travel compared to 2021. The zero-COVID policy is continuous with the rest of the world, and it reflects in the dramatically slower recovery of China-related travel.

The European airlines in May increased to 412.3 per cent compared to 2021. Capacity increased by 221.3 per cent, and load factor jumped by 30.1 percentage points to 80.6 per cent. The impact of the war in Ukraine also impacted the region directly.

“The strong results in most international and domestic markets compared to a year ago is helping passenger demand catch up to 2019 levels. Total RPKs in May 2022 reached 68.7 per cent of May 2019 levels, which was the best performance against pre-COVID-19 travel so far this year,” the press release reads.

As per the total passenger traffic market shares for 2021, depending on the region of carriers in terms of (measured in revenue passenger kilometres or RPKs) are:

• Asia-Pacific (27.6 per cent)
• Europe (24.9 per cent)
• North America (32.7 per cent)
• Middle East (6.5 per cent)
• Latin America (6.5 per cent)
• Africa (1.9 per cent)

The European Office of Statics, Eurostat, has recently revealed that the number of international and domestic arrivals has recovered significantly compared to 2020. More specifically, the number of domestic arrivals has almost doubled while the number of international tourists six folded during this time.

Regardless of these positive results, the pre-pandemic levels are still unreachable for tourism operators in Europe. Compared with 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, domestic arrivals dropped by 21 per cent, and international arrivals decreased by 42 per cent.