September offers no relief to passenger downturn

GENEVA - The International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced that passenger demand in September remained highly depressed. For African airlines, this means that traffic sank 88.5% in September as it barely budged from an 88.7% drop in August. Africa’s capacity contracted 74.7%, and load factor fell 39.4 percentage points to 32.6%, which was the second lowest among regions.

Meanwhile, globally total demand (measured in revenue passenger kilometres or RPKs) was 72.8% below September 2019 levels (only slightly improved over the 75.2% year-to-year decline recorded in August). Capacity was down 63% compared to a year ago and load factor fell 21.8 percentage points to 60.1%.

International passenger demand in September plunged 88.8% compared to September 2019, unchanged from the 88.5% decline recorded in August. Capacity plummeted 78.9%, and load factor withered 38.2 percentage points to 43.5%.

Overall, domestic demand in September was down 43.3% compared to the previous year, improved from a 50.7% decline in August. Compared to 2019, capacity fell 33.3% and the load factor dropped 12.4 percentage points to 69.9%.

“We have hit a wall in the industry’s recovery. A resurgence in Covid- 19 outbreaks -particularly in Europe and the US -- combined with governments’ reliance on the blunt instrument of quarantine in the absence of globally aligned testing regimes, has halted momentum toward re-opening borders to travel. Although domestic markets are doing better, this is primarily owing to improvements in China and Russia. And domestic traffic represents just a bit more than a third of total traffic, so it is not enough to sustain a general recovery,” said Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s Director General and CEO.

In Europe carriers’ September, demand collapsed 82.5% versus a year ago, which was a setback compared to an 80.5% decline in August. Europe was the only region to see deterioration in traffic compared to August, owing to renewed infections that led to a wave of border closings. Capacity contracted 70.7% and load factor fell by 35.1 percentage points to 51.8%. Asia-Pacific airlines’ September traffic sank 95.8% compared to the year-ago period, virtually unchanged from a 96.2% drop in August. The region continued to suffer from the steepest fall in traffic, as flight restrictions have remained stringent with little re-opening of borders. Capacity plummeted 89.6% and load factor shrank 46.8 percentage points to 31.7%, the lowest among regions.