The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has announced that there was “healthy” global passenger demand for July with all regions reporting growth.
Total revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs) rose 6.2 per cent, compared to the same month last year. Africa grew by 3.5 per cent in July, Asia Pacific 9.4 per cent, Europe 4.6 per cent, Latin America 5.3 per cent, the Middle East 4.5 per cent and North America five per cent.
While this was down from 8.1 per cent year-over-year growth in June, but it nevertheless marked a solid start to the peak passenger demand season.
Monthly capacity (available seat kilometers or ASKs) increased by 5.5 per cent and load factor rose 0.6 percentage point to a record high for July of 85.2 per cent.
IATA’s director general and chief executive officer, Alexandre de Juniac (pictured above) said: “The industry posted another month of solid traffic growth. And the record load factor shows that airlines are becoming even more efficient in terms of deploying capacity to meet demand.
“However, rising costs – particularly fuel – will likely limit the stimulus we would expect from lower airfares. Therefore, we do expect to see a continued slowing of growth compared to 2017.”
