Airlines back to 50% of pre-pandemic level — Ryanair leads

On Sunday, the number of traffic flights in European airspace on a weekly basis again rose above 50 percent of the pre-corona level. With 19,826 flights, Friday was already the busiest day in absolute numbers since March 2020, Eurocontrol said.
Week-on-week the number of flights increased by 9 per cent. Air traffic is picking up quite quickly, now that more and more countries are opening their doors to tourists. But partly due to the lack of business traffic, it will take a long time before the pre-corona level is fully reached again.

Ryanair was – measured in number of flights – by far the largest in Europe last week. For a large part of the corona crisis, Turkish Airlines was at the top, but the Turks have had to settle for second place for a few weeks. KLM is in fifth place in Europe.

Global air travel will bounce back strongly by 2023 as countries roll out Covid-19 vaccines and learn to manage the pandemic, noted the International Air Transport Association (Iata).

The report predicted:

• In 2021 global passenger numbers are expected to recover to 52 per cent of pre-Covid-19 levels (2019).
• In 2022 global passenger numbers are expected to recover to 88 per cent of pre-Covid-19 levels.
• In 2023 global passenger numbers are expected to surpass pre-Covid-19 levels (105 per cent).
• By 2030 global passenger numbers are expected to have grown to 5.6 billion. That would be 7 per cent below the pre-Covid-19 forecast and an estimated loss of 2-3 years of growth due to C-19.

The report from Iata and Tourism Economics said that by 2030, global passenger numbers would have grown to 5.6 billion – that would be 7 per cent below the pre-Covid forecast and an estimated loss of two to three years of growth due to the pandemic.

Recovery in revenue growth between 2019 and 2039, measured in revenue passenger kilometres, would be slightly lower at 3 per cent due to more domestic travel and short-haul flights, according to the report.