Middle Eastern airlines traffic jumps by 75% in February

Muscat: Middle Eastern airlines saw a 75 percent traffic increase compared to February a year ago, according to a new report.

Capacity climbed 40.5 percent and load factor pushed up 15.8 percentage points to 80 percent, the Geneva International Air Transport Association (IATA) said in its latest report based on February 2023 traffic results.

Globally also IATA said continued strong growth in air travel demand is being seen. Total traffic in February 2023 (measured in revenue passenger kilometres or RPKs) rose 55.5 percent compared to February 2022. Globally, traffic is now at 84.9 percent of February 2019 levels.

Domestic traffic for February rose 25.2 percent compared to the year-ago period. Total February 2023 domestic traffic was at 97.2 percent of the February 2019 level, the IATA report said.

International traffic climbed 89.7 percent versus February 2022 with all markets recording strong growth, led once again by carriers in the Asia-Pacific region. International RPKs reached 77.5 percent of February 2019 levels.

“Despite the uncertain economic signals, demand for air travel continues to be strong across the globe and particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. The industry is now just about 15 percent below 2019 levels of demand and that gap is narrowing each month,” said Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director General.

The report further said that Asia-Pacific airlines had a 378.7 percent increase in February 2023 traffic compared to February 2022, maintaining the very positive momentum of the past few months since the lifting of travel restrictions in the region. Capacity rose 176.4 percent and the load factor increased 34.9 percentage points to 82.5 percent, the second highest among the regions.

European carriers posted a 47.9 percent traffic rise versus February 2022. Capacity climbed 29.7 percent, and the load factor rose 9.1 percentage points to 73.7 percent, which was the lowest among the regions.