Geneva – The International Air Transport As sociation (IATA) announced that the recovery in air travel slowed for both domestic and international in January 2022 compared to December 2021, owing to the imposition of travel restrictions following the emergence of Omicron last November.
Unless otherwise specified, we’re going back to year-over-year traffic comparisons instead of comparisons with the 2019 period. Because of the low traffic base in 2021, several markets may experience extremely rapid year-over-year growth, despite the fact that their size will remain substantially smaller than in 2019.
- In January 2022, total demand for air travel (measured in revenue passenger kilometers or RPKs) was up 82.3 percent from January 2021. On a seasonally adjusted basis, however, it was down 4.9 percent from the previous month (December 2021).
- Domestic air traffic increased 41.5 percent in January compared to the previous year, but declined 7.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis compared to December 2021.
- On a seasonally adjusted basis, international RPKs grew 165.6 percent from January 2021 to January 2022, but declined 2.2 percent month-over-month between December 2021 and January 2022.
“The recovery in air travel continued in January, despite hitting a speed bump called Omicron. Strengthened border controls did not stop the spread of the variant. But where population immunity was strong, the public health systems were not overwhelmed. Many governments are now adjusting COVID-19 polices to align with those for other endemic viruses. This includes lifting travel restrictions that have had such a devastating impact on lives, economies and the freedom to travel,” said Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director General.
International Passenger Markets
European carriers’ International traffic increased 225.1 percent in January 2021 compared to January 2020, which was slightly higher than the 223.3 percent growth in December 2021 compared to December 2020. Capacity increased by 129.9%, while load factor increased by 19.4% to 66.4 percent.
Asia-Pacific airlines In January 2021, their foreign traffic increased by 124.4 percent over January 2020, a considerable decrease from the 138.5 percent increase in December 2021 over December 2020. Capacity increased by 54.4 percent, but the load factor increased by 14.7 percentage points to 47.0 percent, the lowest among regions.
Middle Eastern airlines had a 145.0 percent increase in demand in January 2021 against January 2020, a far cry from the 178.2 percent increase in December 2021 versus December 2020. In January, capacity increased by 71.7 percent over the previous year, and load factor increased by 17.5 percentage points to 58.6 percent.
North American carriers In January 2021, traffic increased by 148.8% compared to January 2020, a considerable fall from the 185.4 percent increase in December 2021 compared to December 2020. Capacity increased by 78.0 percent, while load factor increased by 17.0 percentage points to 59.9%.
Latin American airlines In January 2021, traffic increased by 157.0 percent over the same month in 2020, an improvement over the 150.8 percent increase in December 2020. For the 16th month in a row, capacity increased by 91.2 percent and load factor improved by 19.4 percentage points to 75.7 percent, easily the greatest load factor among the regions.
African airlines’ In January 2022, traffic increased 17.9% over the previous year, a slower rate than the 26.3 percent growth seen in December 2021. Capacity increased by 6.3 percent in January 2022, and load factor increased by 6.0 percentage points to 60.5 percent.
Domestic Passenger Markets
Japan’s Domestic demand increased by 107 percent, the greatest year-over-year increase ever recorded, albeit traffic fell 4.1 percent from December to January 2022 on a seasonally adjusted basis.
India’s Domestic RPKs declined 18% year over year in January, the worst drop of any of IATA’s domestic markets. Seasonally adjusted RPKs fell roughly 45 percent between December and January on a month-to-month basis.
2022 vs 2019
Despite a year-over-year increase in traffic in January 2022, passenger demand remained well below pre-COVID-19 levels. In January, total RPKs were down 49.6% compared to January 2019. Domestic traffic was down 26.5 percent, while international traffic was down 62.4 percent.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
- The impact of the Russia-Ukraine crisis, which started in late February, is not included in the January numbers. Travel is projected to suffer as a result of the sanctions and airspace closures, particularly among neighboring countries.
- In 2021, the Ukrainian passenger market represented for 3.3 percent of European traffic and 0.8 percent of global traffic.In 2021, Russian foreign traffic accounted for 5.7 percent of European traffic (excluding domestic traffic) and 1.3 percent of global traffic.
- Flights have been rerouted or cancelled as a result of airspace closures, especially in the Europe-Asia market but also in the Asia-North America market. This effect is tempered by the fact that flight activity has decreased dramatically since Asia’s borders were largely closed as a result of COVID-19. RPKs flown between Asia and North America and Asia and Europe accounted for 3.0% and 4.5 percent of global international RPKs, respectively, in 2021.
Aside from these difficulties, the recent surge in gasoline prices is putting downward pressure on airline rates.
“When we made our most recent industry financial forecast last autumn, we expected the airline industry to lose $11.6 billion in 2022 with jet fuel at $78/barrel and fuel accounting for 20% of costs. As of 4 March, jet fuel is trading at over $140/barrel. Absorbing such a massive hit on costs just as the industry is struggling to cut losses as it emerges from the two-year COVID-19 crisis is a huge challenge. If the jet fuel price stays that high, then over time, it is reasonable to expect that it will be reflected in airline yields,” said Walsh.
The Bottom Line
“The past few weeks have seen a dramatic shift by many governments around the world to ease or remove COVID-19-related travel restrictions and requirements as the disease enters its endemic phase. It’s vital that this process continue and even accelerate, to more quickly restore damaged global supply chains and enable people to resume their lives. One step to encourage a return to normality is to remove mask mandates for air travel. It makes no sense to continue to require masks on airplanes when they are no longer being required in shopping malls, theatres or offices. Aircraft are equipped with highly sophisticated hospital quality filtration systems and have much higher air flow and air exchange rates than most other indoor environments where mask mandates already have been removed,” said Walsh.
