Global Air Traffic Improves in 2021 but Asia–Pacific Slow to Recover, says ICAO
Regional cooperation is needed to speed up recovery and build resilience.
Global air travel improved last year from 2020 but was still well below pre-pandemic levels, says the latest report from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Enhancing regional cooperation is important in reviving air transport and accelerating tourism and trade recovery.
North and Latin America and Caribbean regions showed the highest recovery rates in passenger traffic, while Asia and the Pacific was the weakest performing region due to slowed domestic and stagnant international traffic levels.
ICAO’s latest economic impact analysis shows that air traffic recovered modestly in 2021 at 2.3 billion passengers or 49% below pre-pandemic (2019) levels compared with the 60% drop seen in 2020. Domestic travel is recovering at a faster pace, reaching 68% of pre pandemic levels, while international traffic remains at just 28%.
Global seat capacity offered by airlines improved by 20% last year, exceeding the growth in passenger demand. The overall passenger load factor in 2021
stood at 68%, compared to 82% in 2019. Airlines worldwide incurred losses of $324 billion, following $372 billion in 2020. The 2021 figures are preliminary estimates.
Forecasts for 2022
ICAO says the outlook for this year is still uncertain given the volatile COVID-19 situation. Based on its latest projections, passenger traffic for 2022 may continue to improve at 26% to 31% less than 2019 levels and seat capacity down by 20% to 23%.
In an optimistic scenario, passenger traffic may reach 86% of its pre-pandemic levels based on 73% international traffic recovery and 95% domestic.
More pessimistic scenarios point to a 75% recovery based on 58% international and 86% percent domestic recoveries. This projected continued decline in traffic could translate into estimated losses of $186 billion to $217 billion in gross airline passenger operating revenues in 2022 compared with 2019.
The latest estimates indicate that traffic patterns over the longer term may be affected. The 2018–2050 compound annual
growth rate (CAGR) of global revenue passenger kilometers is projected at 3.6%, down from the pre-COVID forecast of 4.2%.
Regional cooperation
The United Nations agency says continuing efforts by member states to implement World Health Organization (WHO) and ICAO recommendations, including those issued by the ICAO Council’s Aviation Recovery Task Force (CART), and adopted in the Ministerial Declaration at ICAO’s High-level Conference on COVID-19, are helping to eliminate travel restrictions disproportionate to public health risks. These also lessen the pandemic’s impacts on global mobility to enable air travel, trade, and tourism to recover more quickly and bring prosperity back to many hard-hit markets and regions.
Held in October 2021, ICAO’s High-level Conference on COVID-19 considered proposals on how to strengthen various forms of regional cooperation to speed up recovery. At the end of the conference, ministers formalized new commitments and priorities, which include strengthening border risk management and vaccination approaches and building air transport back better for sustainability and future pandemic resilience.
To regain public confidence in air travel, participating countries emphasized that while vaccination should not be a precondition for travel, it is highly desirable that it be used to facilitate increased international mobility. They agreed to work with ICAO and other stakeholders to ensure the interoperability and accessibility of secure applications to validate pandemic-related testing, vaccination, and recovery certification.
They also committed to promoting, to the greatest extent possible, a harmonized and inclusive approach, including alleviating or exempting testing and/or quarantine requirements for fully vaccinated or recovered passengers, taking into account the different circumstances of individual states and their national polices.
They also recognized the need to ensure the long-term sustainability of the air transport sector, both in terms of its future resilience to new infectious disease outbreaks and the need to address the climate change challenge.