Asia misses global recovery of air travel, as IATA condemns bans

Asia-Pacific countries have almost entirely missed out on the global recovery of air travel, with flights still down more than 90% compared with pre-pandemic levels, new figures show. The region is the only part of the world to see practically no improvement in air travel during the past year, with traffic up just 0.3 percentage point in October compared to September. The IATA released the figures on Thursday as it warned that a raft of travel bans to halt the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant threatened to derail the fragile recovery of global aviation. Travel in the Asia-Pacific was down 93.1% in October 2021 compared to October 2019 — almost unchanged from the 92.8% decline recorded for September 2021 compared to two years previously, according to the trade organisation. By comparison, Middle Eastern airlines saw demand rise by almost 7 percentage points, with traffic in October down 60.3% compared to before the pandemic. European carriers saw demand rise by nearly 6 percentage points, with traffic down only 50.6% compared to October 2019. Latin American airlines reported an increase of more than 6 percentage points, with October traffic down 55.1%. North American carriers experienced a 57% drop in traffic compared to 2019, improving from a 61.4% decline in September. African airlines’ traffic was down 60.2% in October, compared to 62.1% over the same period in 2019.<br/>