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Asia-Pacific international passenger traffic remained stalled in September
November 4th 2021
A recovery in domestic markets, particularly in China, helped drive a moderate rebound in global air travel in September, but international passenger traffic remained stalled in the Asia-Pacific. Read More » The latest numbers from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) show total demand for air travel in September was down 53.4% compared with the same month in 2019. This was an uptick from August, when demand was 56% lower than two years ago. Domestic markets declined 24.3% compared with September 2019, a significant improvement on the 32.6% difference measured in August. However, international passenger traffic fell away by 69.2% from September 2019, fractionally worse than the gap in August. Asia-Pacific airlines reported September international traffic collapsed by 93.2% compared with September 2019, virtually unchanged from the 93.4% drop registered in August. The region continues to have some of the world’s strictest border control measures and in September they had not yet begun to open up. Capacity dropped 85.2% and load factor was down 42.3 percentage points to 36.2%. IATA said this was “easily the lowest among regions”. ”The recent U.S. policy change to reopen travel from 33 markets for fully vaccinated foreigners from November 8 is a welcome if long overdue development,’’ said IATA director-general, Willie Walsh. “Along with recent re-openings in other key markets like Australia, Argentina, Thailand and Singapore this should give a boost to the large-scale restoration of the freedom to travel.”
