Airports Council International World (ACI) World released updated data this week that projects the continuing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will end up cutting global air traffic in half in 2021, compared to 2019, with a forecast of 4.6 billion passengers for the year compared to 9.2 billion for 2019.
Domestic passenger traffic continues to recover faster than the international market and is expected to reach more than 3.1 billion passengers by the end of the year, a level corresponding to 58.5 percent of that achieved in 2019, according to the latest ACI World Advisory Bulletin.
ACI World estimates that the world’s airports are expected to lose more than US$111 billion in revenues this year, US$3 billion more than projected in the previous assessment of July 2021.
“While the global travel market is still mostly depressed, more and more countries are moving towards the gradual reopening of their borders to vaccinated travelers,” said ACI World Director General Luis Felipe de Oliveira in sounding a positive note. “Despite a delayed recovery as compared to earlier forecasts, this trend brings a renewed optimism that air travel could see an uptick in 2022, moving the industry closer to recovery. We hope that the imminent easing of travel restrictions in the US will pave the way for other countries to safely reopen their borders.”
In looking at specific regions, ACI World noted that North America’s performance has improved significantly in 2021 following a weak first quarter, with the region forecast to outperform other regions to the end the year with traffic down only 32.8 percent compared to the 2019 level. The airports organization also touted the announcement by the Biden Administration to ease U.S. international travel restrictions beginning this month.
For its 2022 projections, ACI World said North America will continue to outperform other regions reaching more than 85 percent of its 2019 level by year-end. Overall, global traffic next year is expected to be down 28.3 percent compared to 2019 levels, with the Middle East remaining the most impacted region and is expected to be 51.2 percent lower than that projected for the baseline.
Asia Pacific in 2022 is also expected to be a laggard, down 41.5 percent compared to the projected baseline, as the region’s traffic momentum was weakened in the second half of 2021 by the resurgence of the pandemic, the bulletin said.
