Grim prediction warns international flights won’t recover until 2024
The world’s leading travel body has delivered a new, pessimistic outlook on when international travel will thrive again. It’s not looking good.
The world’s leading travel body has delivered its latest grim outlook on when international air travel will properly recover, predicting it won’t be at pre-COVID levels until 2024.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA), which made the prediction, also had bad news for Australian airlines, revealing our domestic market was one of the worst-hit in the world and wasn’t recovering as quickly as others.
The forecast for international travel is a year later than previously forecast by the IATA.
The association said uncertainty about the timing of border reopenings is the main factor weighing on international traffic.
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𧳠Latest forecast: The return of global passenger traffic to pre-#COVID19 levels is now delayed by a year, to 2024.
— IATA (@IATA) July 28, 2020
As int'l #travel remains limited, the recovery for global passenger traffic has been slower than expected ð
More details ðhttps://t.co/Ijt8UChxmP pic.twitter.com/RrITj6vEiz
Slow coronavirus containment in the United States and developing economies, reduced corporate travel and weak consumer confidence are also being blamed for the more pessimistic outlook.
“Passenger traffic hit bottom in April, but the strength of the upturn has been very weak. What improvement we have seen has been domestic flying. International markets remain largely closed,” IATA chief executive Alexandre de Juniac said.
“Consumer confidence is depressed and not helped by the UK’s weekend decision to impose a blanket quarantine on all travellers returning from Spain. And in many parts of the world infections are still rising.
“All of this points to a longer recovery period and more pain for the industry and the global economy.”
The IATA noted there was some “pent-up demand” for leisure travel and travel to visit friends and family.
But concerns about job security and rising unemployment, as well as the risks of catching COVID-19, kept consumer confidence weak.
For 2020, global passenger numbers are expected to decline by 55 per cent compared to 2019, worsened from the April forecast of 46 per cent.
Mr de Juniac said, currently, international traffic was “virtually non-existent”.
“Most countries are still closed to international arrivals or have imposed quarantines, that have the same effect as an outright lockdown,” he said.
Data obtained by the IATA revealed domestic traffic has rebounded in the US and China but Australia is only slowly recovering from the sudden drop in domestic travel.
Australia saw the biggest drop in domestic revenue per passenger kilometre of any large country, recording a 94 per cent slump in June from a year earlier.
The second-biggest drop was in Brazil, which has been a global epicentre of the virus, which saw domestic revenue per passenger kilometre fall 84.7 per cent.
In June the IATA’s chief economist said the world’s airlines could lose up to $117 billion in revenue in 2020 due to COVID-19.