Air traffic Recovery Forecast: A Shot in the Dark

IATA Forecast

IATA forecast for 2021 – press release of July 2020 – stands at 50.6% of 2019 levels while a full recovery will come about only in 2024. Short-haul traffic shall improve faster than long-haul while a severe downside risk remains if travel restrictions are not eased.

Worst predictions would also be influenced by a slow virus containment in the US and developing countries, reduced corporate travel, and weak consumer confidence. A global traffic recovery cannot be expected before 2024 according to IATA, and that is a year later than expected.

Eurocontrol Forecast

Eurocontrol also has a similar view in regard to a European traffic recovery for the period 2021-2024, expressed in the number of flights. The info-graphics shown above speak by themselves and require no comment, only that both IATA and Eurocontrol opinions converge: full recovery is foreseen only for 2024 if the best scenario applies.

To conclude, let’s keep alive the possibility that experts may be wrong and that those optimistic forecasters may have a clearer vision of the future of an industry that, at present, is still in deep distress.

Featured image: Fliers at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport wearing facemasks on March 6th, 2020 as the COVID-19 coronavirus spreads throughout the United States. Photo: ATL