Global passenger traffic in February was at 85% of levels seen in in the same month in pre-pandemic 2019, according to figures released by Iata.
The airline industry body said there was “continued strong growth in air travel demand” in February, with the total traffic measured in revenue passenger kilometres up by 55.5% on February 2022.
Willie Walsh, Iata director general, said: “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% below 2019 levels of demand and that gap is narrowing each month.”
Looking forward to the holiday period, he added: “People are flying in ever greater numbers. With the Easter and Passover holidays we are expecting large numbers of travellers to take to the skies in many parts of the world.
“They should do so with confidence that airlines have been rebuilding resiliency that suffered owing to the pandemic.
“Other participants in the air travel value chain, including airports, air navigation service providers and airport security staff, need to have the same commitment to ensuring our customers can enjoy smooth holiday travel.”
European carriers saw passenger traffic rise 48% year on year, with capacity up 30%. The average load factor rose 9.1 percentage points to 73.7%, which was the lowest among the regions.