The widespread perception that both traditional and emerging tourist hotspots worldwide have been overcrowded with tourists over the last year has just been confirmed. The tourism industry is experiencing an unprecedented surge, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
From July 2023 to July 2024, global air travel demand increased by 8 percent. Meanwhile, seating capacity also grew by 7.4%, contributing to these positive figures.
Additionally, flights’ load factor averaged 86% despite a massive international flight disruption on July 19, known as ‘the CrowdStrike IT outage.’
This incident has been deemed the largest IT outage in history, triggered by a botched software update that affected millions of Windows systems, including countless airport systems worldwide. The disruption caused the cancelation and delay of thousands of flights on all continents and billions in losses.
Surprisingly, this unfortunate situation did not prevent July from breaking several records in air passenger transport.
“Passenger demand [in July] hit an all-time high for the industry and in all regions except Africa, despite the significant disruption caused by the CrowdStrike IT outage,” said Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director General.
Walsh also emphasized the need to keep air travel affordable for all travelers while speeding up the resolution of the problem with the supply chain, especially this time of the year when travel shifts from leisure to business.
“People need and want to fly. And they are doing that in great numbers. Load factors are at the practicable maximum. But, persistent supply chain bottlenecks have made deploying the capacity to meet the need to travel more challenging. There is an urgent call for manufacturers and suppliers to resolve their supply chain issues so that air travel remains accessible and affordable to all those who rely on it,” he said.
The following chart shows the air passenger market growth for July 2024, comparing year-over-year changes by region. As can be observed from the data, the total market grew by 8% in Revenue Passenger Kilometers (RPK).
“1) % of industry RPKs in 2023 2) Year-on-year change in load factor 3) Load Factor Level.”
These results reveal that most markets are returning to “long-term growth trends after the post-pandemic bounce back,” says IATA.
In a nutshell, airlines worldwide are experiencing strong growth with Asia-Pacific carriers leading the way with a 19.1% increase in year-on-year demand. Latin American airlines experienced a significant 13.4% boost despite disruptions caused by the powerful Category-5 Hurricane Beryl.
European airlines saw an 8.3% rise over the last year, driven by the expanding Europe-Asia market.
The African airline industry also showed 7.4% growth in 2024. For its part, Middle Eastern carriers saw a 5.8% increase.
The worst-performing region was North America with a modest increase of 4.9%. However, it saw the highest load factor at 89.4%.
Regarding domestic passenger markets, the countries with the most important domestic year-on-year growth were Brazil with an 8.9% increase, China with a 7.1% and India with a 7.7% in Revenue Passenger Kilometers (RPK). The United States secured the fourth position with a 5.0% increase in RPK.