The International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) full-year global passenger traffic results focusing on 2020 determined demand decreased by 65.9 percent compared to the full year of 2019.
“Last year was a catastrophe,” IATA Director General and CEO Alexandre de Juniac said. “There is no other way to describe it. What recovery there was over the Northern hemisphere summer season stalled in autumn, and the situation turned dramatically worse over the year-end holiday season, as more severe travel restrictions were imposed in the face of new outbreaks and new strains of COVID-19.”
The IATA indicated the decrease represents the sharpest traffic decline in aviation history. International passenger demand in 2020 was 75.6 percent below 2019 levels while capacity, which is measured in available seat kilometers, declined 68.1 percent and load factor fell 19.2 percentage points to 62.8 percent.
“Optimism that the arrival and initial distribution of vaccines would lead to a prompt and orderly restoration in global air travel have been dashed in the face of new outbreaks and new mutations of the disease,” de Juniac said.
Additionally, the IATA revealed domestic demand in 2020 was down 48.8 percent compared to 2019, capacity contracted by 35.7 percent, and load factor dropped 17 percentage points to 66.6 percent.
“The world is more locked down today than at virtually any point in the past 12 months, and passengers face a bewildering array of rapidly changing and globally uncoordinated travel restrictions,” de Juniac continued. “We urge governments to work with industry to develop the standards for vaccination, testing, and validation that will enable governments to have confidence that borders can reopen and international air travel can resume once the virus threat has been neutralized.”