China’s carriers continued to lead the recovery, with traffic down 35.5% in June compared to the year-ago period, raised from a 46.3% decline in May.

Japan’s airlines saw improved domestic demand after the state of COVID-19 emergency was lifted in late May. Domestic RPKs fell by 74.9% year-on-year in June, compared with around 90% annual declines in the previous two months.

The Bottom Line

“Domestic traffic improvements notwithstanding, international traffic, which in normal times accounts for close to two-thirds of global air travel, remains virtually non-existent. Most countries are still closed to international arrivals or have imposed quarantines, that have the same effect as an outright lockdown. Summer — our industry’s busiest season — is passing by rapidly; with little chance for an upswing in international air travel unless governments move quickly and decisively to find alternatives to border closures, confidence-destroying stop-start re-openings and demand-killing quarantine,” said de Juniac.

IATA urges governments to implement a layer of measures including the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO’s) global guidelines for restoring air connectivity contained in ICAO’s Takeoff: Guidance for Air Travel through the COVID-19 Public Health Crisis^[5]. IATA also sees potential for accurate, fast, scalable and affordable testing measures and comprehensive contact tracing to play a role in managing the risk of virus spread while re-connecting economies and re-starting travel and tourism. “We need to learn to manage the risks of living with COVID-19 with targeted and predictable measures that will safely re-build traveler confidence and shattered economies,” said de Juniac.

View the full June Air Passenger Market Analysis (pdf)
View Brian Pearce’s presentation (pdf)
View Alexandre de Juniac’s media briefing^[8][6][7]

For more information, please contact:

Corporate Communications
Tel: +41 22 770 2967
Email: corpcomms@iata.org^[9]

Notes for Editors:

• IATA (International Air Transport Association) represents some 290 airlines comprising 82% of global air traffic.
• You can follow us at https://twitter.com/iata^[10] for announcements, policy positions, and other useful industry information.
• Statistics compiled by IATA Economics^[11] using direct airline reporting complemented by estimates, including the use of FlightRadar24^[12] data provided under license
• All figures are provisional and represent total reporting at time of publication plus estimates for missing data. Historic figures are subject to revision.
• Domestic RPKs accounted for about 36% of the total market. It is most important for North American airlines as it is about 66% of their operations.
• Explanation of measurement terms:
  – RPK: Revenue Passenger Kilometers measures actual passenger traffic
  – ASK: Available Seat Kilometers measures available passenger capacity
  – PLF: Passenger Load Factor is % of ASKs used.
• IATA statistics cover international and domestic scheduled air traffic for IATA member and non-member airlines.
• Total passenger traffic market shares by region of carriers in terms of RPK are: Asia-Pacific 34.6%, Europe 26.8%, North America 22.3%, Middle East 9.1%, Latin America 5.1%, and Africa 2.1%.