IATA’s March figures

With people rushing home the March international air passenger figures were not quite as bad as predicted but nevertheless for IATA member airlines demand shrank 55.8% compared to March 2019. Capacity tumbled 42.8%, and load factor plunged 18.4 percentage points to 62.5%.
 
The April numbers are likely to be significantly worse.

Asia-Pacific airlines led the fall, down 65.5% compared to the year-ago period.  With European carriers the drop was 54.3% year-to-year and with Middle Eastern airlines it was 45.9%.

North American carriers’ traffic dived 53.7% compared to March a year ago, dramatically worsened from a 2.9% drop in February compared to February 2019. Capacity fell 38.1%, and load factor sank by 21.1 percentage points to 62.8%.
 
Latin American airlines experienced a 45.9% demand drop in March, compared to the same month last year; in February traffic declined 0.2% year-to-year. Capacity fell 33.5% and load factor sagged 15.3 percentage points to 66.5%.
 
Chinese airlines continued to see the steepest declines, with domestic demand down 65.5% in March compared to March 2019. This, however, was an improvement over the 85% year-to-year decline in February when the pandemic first broke out.

www.iata.org

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