While the rebound in global economic activity continued in September, new COVID-19 outbreaks and further travel restrictions – particularly in Europe – meant little improvement in passenger traffic from August.
However, despite Europe’s renewed outbreaks, it remained the most resilient international passenger market in September.
This was announced during an Iata press briefing yesterday (November 4) by Iata chief economist, Brian Pearce, and ceo and dg, Alexandre de Juniac.
Brian pointed out that with the growing number of COVID-19 cases, measures were becoming stricter and would further impact the recovery in aviation in October.
Iata statistics revealed that industry-wide revenue passenger-kilometres (RPKs) declined by 72,8% year-on-year in September, a small improvement from the 75,2% fall in August. He said the recovery remained mostly driven by domestic markets – down 43,3% year-on-year – while there was no clear recovery in international traffic in September.
International air passenger demand also did not improve in September, with international RPKs contracting by 88,8% year-on-year, versus 88,5% in August.
Airlines based in Africa posted an 88,5% decline in international passenger demand in September, broadly unchanged from August.
Global outlook
Brian warned that economic and health risks were accumulating, noting that renewed measures to stop the spread of the pandemic were likely to also impact economic activity, resulting in high unemployment and suppressed consumer confidence. “There is high uncertainty about the extent of fiscal and monetary policies in the coming period,” he said
Therefore, although there are some improvements in economic activity, the recovery is vulnerable. Furthermore, Brian added, medical progress on COVID-19 was slow and a vaccine might not be widespread before the second half of 2021. Moreover, there would be distribution challenges and there were risks that immunity would be temporary.
Alexandre added that current growth projections were for a 68% drop in December and an average 66% drop in passenger traffic for the year.