However, Lufthansa’s profit outlook followed the same pattern of its global peers, with these being the common factors mentioned across the aviation industry’s earning documents: ​Iran war, higher jet fuel prices and capacity revisions.

While the budget carriers have felt the worst of the crisis, fuel-related costs have managed to pressurise the airlines’ hedging programmes too.

One after another, disappointing numbers arrive

Let’s start with Lufthansa, whose latest forecast 2026 adjusted earnings before interest and tax (Adjusted EBIT) stands at 1.7 billion euro-2.2 billion euro (USD 2.0 billion to USD 2.5 billion). It had previously expected adjusted EBIT ​well above the 2025’s 1.96 billion euro. After peaking in June 2026, the carrier’s stock has gone down about 2%.

Lufthansa’s capacity fell about 3% in the Q2, partly due to the staff strikes in April. However, its ​full-year capacity plans remain unchanged and are expected to be broadly flat. Adjusted EBIT fell to 383 million euro in the ​second quarter from 870 million euro ⁠a year earlier, well below analysts’ average forecast of 401 million euro.

The company now expects 2026 fuel costs of 8.66 billion euro, compared with an earlier forecast of 8.9 billion euro.

As per the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Till Streichert, the second half of the year remained uncertain as customers were booking closer to departure dates. Still, Lufthansa has decided to maintain its longer-term ‌targets, including ⁠an operating margin of 8% to 10% between 2028 and 2030, despite geopolitical disruptions.

The company added that 86% of its fuel needs for this year are hedged, while Spohr told reporters ​fuel supplies are expected to remain stable.

For Air France-KLM, things were a bit different in Q2, as it beat profit expectations on revenue gains from premium and long-haul travel. However, Iran war was the spoilsport here, as the carrier trimmed its annual ‌capacity guidance.

The airline group, in the coming days, will be leveraging its premium offering and ticket price increases to sustain profits through an industry downturn. However, Dutch arm KLM said improvements were not good enough to strengthen its financial foundations.

ALSO READ | AirBaltic files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as Iran war drives up fuel costs

The Franco-Dutch group posted second-quarter adjusted operating profit ⁠of 484 million euro (USD 552.5 million), down from 736 million euro in the same period in 2025 but higher than the 327 million euro consensus from analysts ​polled by the company.

Air France-KLM has lowered full-year capacity expectations, ‌now guiding ⁠for a 1% drop in short and medium-haul flights and a group increase of between 2% and 3%. That is a second cut from the 3% to 5% forecast made before things got heated up in the Middle East. ​The capacity cuts will mainly materialise ⁠in the Q4 and will include fewer daily flights through European cities such as Dusseldorf and London.

The company also trimmed its April fuel bill projection for ​2026 by 4% to USD 8.9 billion, citing newer and more efficient aircraft as well as jet ​fuel hedging.

With 6.8 billion euro ⁠in net cash and 3.5 billion euro in undrawn credit lines (at the end of June), the airline group may look to go for cheap consolidation opportunities.

Budget carriers face cost pressure

The environment is forcing smaller and budget carriers to seek restructuring or buyouts. Portugal’s TAP, one such carrier, has emerged Air France-KLM’s acquisition target, with Lufthansa being the other interested party.

TAP has slots linking its Lisbon hub with Brazil, Portuguese-speaking African countries and the ​United States, markets that can potentially become lucrative expansion opportunities for the winner.

British Airways owner IAG, while publishing its Q2 results in July, trimmed its 2026 capacity outlook ‌to flat, after reporting a 16% profit drop due to soaring fuel costs and weaker travel demand.

IAG, which also owns Iberia and ​Aer Lingus, said its fuel costs for the year would be between 8.3 billion euro and 8.6 billion euro (USD 9.6-USD 9.9 billion), slightly lower than the roughly 9 billion euro forecast ‌in May.

The company said it was about 57% booked for the second ​half of the year, with booked revenue in line with a year earlier. It continues ​to expect to ⁠offset about 60% of its higher fuel bill through higher ticket prices and cost-cutting measures.

ALSO READ | Iran war: Chinese airlines sink deeper into losses as jet fuel prices bite

EasyJet, before its acquisition by Apollo Global, saw the Iran war and the resultant price pressure on jet fuel contributing heavily in its 70% ‌profit downfall.

Ryanair, a prominent name in the European budget flying segment, witnessed its profit slumping ​by a third in its most recent quarter on higher fuel costs and lower fares that look set ‌to remain weak through the key summer period amid renewed consumer nervousness due to the Iran war.

The Irish airline reported after-tax profit of 538 million euro (USD 616 million) for its fiscal first quarter through June 30, ​down 34% from the previous year and short of a forecast of 579 million euro in a ​company poll of ⁠analysts.

However, the budget carrier maintained about being “better positioned” than most rivals because 80% of its fuel requirements to the end ⁠of March ​2027 are hedged at USD 67 per barrel. The management also stepped in to ​hedge 15% of its fuel needs for the following year at USD 85 per barrel during the recent interim ceasefire.

Wizz Air, another budget airline, saw its operating losses further deepening in the first quarter. It now expects revenue per seat to keep falling in the current quarter after it cut fares to attract passengers. Despite the headwinds, it has decided to keep on expanding its operational capacities, by inducting new Airbus aircraft in its fleet.

The budget carrier has hedged 76% of its full-year jet fuel needs using zero-cost collars, instruments that would cap the business’ ⁠exposure at USD 826 ​per metric ton. However, the same mechanism, prices fall below ​a floor of USD 759, may end up becoming counter-productive, as it will prevent the carrier from benefiting from the windfall.

Same story everywhere

In the United States, domestic airfares have been 26.5% higher than a year ago, according to June’s consumer price index data. Analysts, after decoding the data, found prices going up, both in domestic and global front, by 25%-30% compared with 2025.

Strong demand for travel and reduced global oil refining capacity have resulted in upward trajectory of jet fuel prices. The commodity was trading about USD 149 a barrel as of August 4, up from USD 90 at the start of 2026 – a 65% increase. Crude-oil prices are up about 30% since January, trading around USD 76 a barrel.

“Jet fuel costs rise slightly higher than oil prices because on average, only about 10% of refined oil can be turned into jet fuel. The more limited the product, the more vulnerable it is to these supply shocks,” said Louise Burke, the global head of aviation at Argus Media, a commodities data provider, while interacting with the Guardian.

“There have been a substantial amount of refinery closures, a key to why jet fuel prices have soared so much higher than standard crude oil. A new refinery in west Africa has helped bring on supply, and refiners are making tweaks to boost output to about 12%-14% to take advantage of the higher jet fuel prices, which has helped to alleviate some of the shortages,” she noted further.

ALSO READ | Iran war: Higher fuel costs weigh on UK carriers’ earnings outlook

As per John Grant, the chief analyst at OAG, jet fuel prices are the biggest operating cost for airlines and the hardest to control. Costs range between 30% and 35%. In a set-up like this, airlines get a little elbow room. Some may hedge their fuel costs to limit losses, but others buy on the volatile spot market.

Demand for flying in the world’s largest economy has also persisted despite higher airfares, giving airlines more leeway to continue charging higher prices.

Legacy carriers such as American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines said in recent earnings calls that higher airfares helped to offset some of the higher fuel costs, but the volatility of prices makes it hard to forecast the effects.

In China, in separate filings to the Hong Kong and Shanghai stock exchanges on July 14, China Southern Airlines, Air China, and China Eastern Airlines reported anticipated interim losses that add up to between RMB 7.37–8.97 billion (USD 1.1–USD 1.3 billion).

And this is not about China, Europe or the United States. Everywhere it’s the same scenario. As per the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) latest financial outlook for the global airline industry, overall sector profitability will get halved due to the geopolitics, with high fuel prices acting as the constant irritant.

Airlines are expected to achieve a combined total net profit of USD 23.0 billion in 2026, roughly half the previously projected USD 41 billion. The net profit margin is expected to be 2.0% in 2026, roughly half the previously projected 3.9%. It is also less than half the 4.2% estimate for the 2025 net profit margin.

Total industry revenues are expected to reach USD 1.165 trillion in 2026, up by paltry 9.4% on the USD 1.065 trillion in 2025.

Only silver lining will be the passenger load factor, that is forecast to continue to set record highs with airlines expected to fill 84.0% of all seats over the year. This will be an improvement on 2025’s ratio of 83.5%.

What’s happening at the fuel price front?

In the United States, the price for a gallon of Jet-A fuel rose 70 cents in August 2026 when compared to July figures to settle at an average price of USD 8.31 per gallon. Fixed-Base Operators (FBOs) conducted by the Aviation Research Group found out Jet-A fuel prices going up the USD 1.70 per gallon mark during the month, compared to the similar period in 2025.

Europe has been able to offset lower Middle Eastern jet fuel shipments by importing cargoes from the United States and Nigeria. The continent brought around 750,000 barrels per day (bpd) of jet fuel in June, the highest level since October 2025, and maintained a similar pace in July.

On August 10, imported jet cargoes were assessed at a discount of USD 24 per metric ton to gasoil futures, the widest discount since July 2025, according to LSEG and Argus Media.

At the height of the Iran war in March, jet fuel had traded at a premium of more than USD 500 per barrel over the benchmark.

However, the current situation is much better than the one seen a couple of months ago, when the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned about the continent having “maybe six weeks of jet fuel left.”

The reality is that the Gulf exports constitute the largest source of jet fuel to the global market. Refineries in other major exporting countries, such as Korea, India and China are themselves highly dependent on crude oil imports from the conflict-ridden region.

Europe has, over the years, relied on the Middle East for about 75% of its jet fuel imports. As per the IEA’s estimates, despite United States and Nigeria acting as the guardian angels currently, they would be only be able to replace a little over half of the lost supplies.

Houston-based Chris Russo, associate director for energy in North America at Publicis Sapient, sees the crisis leaving a long-term imprint on the airlines’ profit books.

Russo, while speaking at the Aviation Week Window Seat podcast, stated that even if Iran war ended tomorrow and the Strait of Hormuz fully reopened, jet fuel prices to remain high for months to come.

In fact, if the crisis gets worse again, some low-cost carriers may not survive a prolonged period of higher costs.

As per him, China and the United States have relied on their strategic oil reserves since the beginning of the Iran war. However, the world has been facing a nearly one-billion-barrel supply shortage.

“This hasn’t been factored into the prices of crude, so that will come back to bite because it will jack up prices again in the future and cause problems downstream for things like jet fuel. This is going to be a challenge for airlines for a long while,” Russo said.

For him, airlines, from now onwards, should take a long-term view about how to procure fuel and manage the processes like commodity’s smart management. Beyond reactive steps, like cutting routes or frequencies, or even fuel hedging, carriers should closely examine the contracts they have with suppliers to guarantee some amount of fuel over the next 12 or 24 months.

Russo said working those options could save an airline one to four cents per barrel, a meaningful saving when so many barrels are being bought.

Fuel Hedging: Where things stand now

In April, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary warned that the European aviation sector, as a whole, will face “financial difficulties” if jet fuel prices stay high.

Then, the following month, discount American carrier Spirit Airlines decided to cease its operations, after repeated attempts to secure creditor support for a government bailout plan met with failure.

Spirit once accounted for 5% of US flights. The news broke out on May 2. A day before that, the carrier’s board blamed the increase in oil prices and “other pressures” on the business responsible for the carrier’s deteriorating financial outlook, that ultimately led to its bankruptcy.

Talking about the Iran war and its impact on Spirit, the carrier’s restructuring plan assumed jet fuel costs of about USD 2.24 a gallon in 2026 and USD 2.14 in 2027.

However, geopolitics shot prices up to around USD 4.51 a gallon by the end of April, making fresh financing a must for the survival of the business, which it couldn’t manage.

However, things have changed since then. S&P Global’s July data, while talking about the industry’s fuel hedging trends, “European airlines’ fuel hedging programs have absorbed the bulk of this year’s conflict-driven jet fuel price shock, industry data showed, widening a structural cost divide with largely unhedged US carriers as coverage ratios begin to thin into 2027.”

Air France-KLM has lifted hedge cover to 87% of consumption on a horizon extending two years forward, while Lufthansa entered the crisis roughly 82% hedged for the Q1 2026 and 77% for the full year.

IAG’s coverage stood at 75% in the first quarter, declining to 50% in the Q4 2025, while Air France-KLM’s quarterly profile ranged from 70% in the first quarter to 47% in the fourth quarter.

Among low-cost carriers, EasyJet was 84% hedged for the H1 2026, 62% for the H2 and 43% for H1 2027, while Ryanair has locked in roughly 80% of next year’s fuel requirement. Wizz Air has described itself as mostly hedged through 2026.

IATA sees the North American airlines largely moving away from fuel hedging, jet fuel cost increases are transmitted more directly and rapidly into the region’s airlines’ cost bases.

Should prices remain elevated as legacy contracts roll off, carriers will face a choice between re-hedging at structurally higher forward levels, absorbing the cost into margins, or passing it through to fares.

Pain everywhere

In July, Iran war found its mention in the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) outlook, with the global monetary body cutting its 2026 global growth forecast for the second time this year. Since then, the headwind called the energy shock has been accompanied by heatwaves (in Europe) and the record high food prices.

Consumers are already facing a cost-of-living heat. Central banks are showing reluctance to cut their interest rates. And if the April’s report from the consultancy Teneo is to be believed, the Iran war has ended up triggering a surge in air fares, with the lowest-priced economy tickets costing 24% more on average than they did a year ago.

The war, in its sixth month, saw a ceasefire being signed and broken by the Washington and Tehran. Post-June, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Jordan and Bahrain have all faced missile and drone attacks, resulting in the flight cancellations.

Several international airlines have pushed their route cancellations to the Middle East after the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) extended its conflict zone advisory for the Gulf, urging airlines to avoid the contested airspace until August 31.

So even if the jet fuel flow gets normal, a lack of permanent ceasefire will ensure that even if the carriers resume their Gulf services, avoiding the contested airspace will end up resulting in taking alternative yet longer routes, leading to more fuel consumption. The cycle of hedging and re-hedging will continue.

Higher ticket prices will remain as airlines will be looking to recover fuel costs. For budget carriers, whose popularity hinges solely on low-cost flying, will find it difficult to pass on the costs.

After the pandemic lull, airlines entered the post-pandemic period focusing on expansion. The Iran war has forced them to focus once again on survival, cost control and balance-sheet protection, whether the industry likes it or not.

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The ‌refinery has submitted an application for a USD 5 billion IPO to Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission, as per the reports. The final size of the listing, however, is not decided yet.

“We really want to drive participation. The mandate of the IPO was to be the people’s IPO,” CEO David Bird told Reuters.

As per Bird, the African energy giant wanted at least three years of ⁠proven production and financial performance before pursuing an overseas listing, which could support a stronger valuation. London has been mentioned as a possible venue.

While Bird didn’t say anything about the IPO’s size or the refinery’s valuation, reports suggest that the company could take into account the USD 2.5 billion raised in a July private placement, which valued the refinery at about USD 40 billion.

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The renewed hostilities are less a fresh shock than a relapse. Since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran at the end of February, the Strait – the corridor that once carried roughly a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil and gas – has swung between closure, partial reopening, and renewed disruption several times over.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in mid-June was meant to end the war and the blockade, but, within days.

Iran said it had closed the Strait again, blaming continued Israeli strikes in Lebanon, a claim the Washington denied. Tanker traffic did partially recover by late June after the US Navy widened a route near Oman, but the reprieve was brief.

The latest flare-up is the most serious yet. On July 7, two tankers – the Qatari-flagged LNG carrier Al Rekayat and the Saudi-flagged supertanker Wedyan – were struck by projectiles inside the Strait, with Al Rekayat evacuated after an engine-room fire. A third vessel was hit within a day, prompting Washington to reimpose sanctions on Iranian oil exports, and launch a new round of strikes on Iranian military sites.

Early on July 12, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Navy declared the strait closed after saying it had fired warning shots at a ship using an unauthorised route.

By July 13, Brent crude had jumped more than 4% as the two sides traded fresh attacks, touching its highest level since June 22, with US Central Command saying it had struck dozens of Iranian targets overnight, and Iran retaliating with missile and drone strikes on the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain.

Shipping data underline how thin the traffic has become: Only six vessels crossed the strait in a 12-hour window last Thursday (July 9) and Friday (July 10), against 18 to 22 daily crossings earlier in the month.

Why Europe, specifically, is exposed
The physical geography of the crisis matters less than the industrial geography behind it. Decades of refinery consolidation across Britain, France and Germany left the continent unusually reliant on imported jet fuel rather than domestic refining capacity, and the Gulf had historically supplied around half of that need.

When the war first disrupted flows in the spring, analysts initially expected African economies – almost entirely dependent on Middle Eastern jet fuel – to suffer worst. Instead, Europe has become the more structurally exposed market by mid-summer, even as it has scrambled successfully to plug the gap.

That scramble has been real. Refiners in Italy lifted jet fuel output by around 10% in the first four months of the year, with Eni, which controls roughly half the country’s refining capacity, importing semi-finished feedstock from outside Europe to keep output rising, according to industry sources.

Cargoes have arrived from unfamiliar directions too: Canada, South Korea and India have all stepped in alongside the United States and Nigeria, with Kuwaiti barrels due back on the market in August for the first time since early March. The result was that European jet fuel imports hit 673,000 barrels per day in June, their highest level since October 2025.

Yet, the buffer this has bought is measured in days, not months. Energy Aspects data from mid-June already pointed to a European supply deficit of close to 600,000 barrels a day for the third quarter – a stark contrast with projected surpluses in both the US and Asia-Pacific.

Inventories of 38 million barrels at the start of June compare with roughly 99 million held in the United States, leaving Europe with under 30 days of demand cover by some estimates – the tightest cushion of any major jet fuel market, even after accounting for higher year-on-year stock levels reported by the IEA.

The view from Brussels – and the airlines
European officials have tried to project calm without denying the underlying strain. EU Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas insisted in the spring that there was no evidence of “actual shortages,” even as the bloc weighed importing more jet fuel from the US and considered new minimum reserve quotas.

More recently, EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen has acknowledged that stocks are likely to tighten further as the summer holiday season peaks, and that Brussels stands ready to coordinate releases from national reserves if the situation deteriorates. That warning looks more urgent now than it did a month ago, given the weekend’s escalation.

Airlines have already adjusted. Lufthansa cut roughly 20,000 short-haul flights through October earlier this year as fuel costs bit into margins, part of a broader pattern of European carriers trimming schedules to conserve fuel rather than let costs spiral unchecked.

Fuel typically accounts for a fifth to a quarter of airline’s operating costs, which is why price swings translate quickly into capacity decisions rather than simply being absorbed. Jet fuel prices in northwest Europe had eased to around USD 133 a barrel from a record above USD 215 at the end of March, a genuine improvement, but the latest exchange of strikes threatens to reverse that trend just as summer travel demand peaks.

What happens next hinges on days, not weeks
Rystad Energy’s Janiv Shah has flagged continued tightness through August as the base case even without further escalation. The renewed fighting makes that base case look optimistic. Brent’s climb toward USD 79 a barrel on July 13, against USD 74 for US crude, reflects markets pricing in a real chance that the June MoU does not hold.

Bloomberg reported Iran declaring the Strait closed “until further notice,” a claim US Central Command disputed, arguing its own strikes were aimed at preserving freedom of navigation rather than restricting it – a dispute that itself signals how fragile the informal arrangements underpinning tanker traffic have become.

For European travellers, the practical upshot for now is less about outright shortages than about capacity and cost: Fewer seats, thinner schedules and airfares that are unlikely to fall even as crude eases from its spring peaks, because demand for the reduced number of available seats remains strong.

Whether that holds through the rest of the summer depends on something no analyst can model with confidence – whether Washington and Tehran can re-establish even the fragile truce that briefly reopened the Strait in June, or whether the current exchange of strikes marks the start of a more sustained third phase of the conflict.

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The refinery, owned by Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote, began fuel production in the facility in 2024. Since then, it has scaled up output of petrol, diesel, and jet fuel.

Apart from supplying energy products in the domestic market, Dangote Petroleum Refinery also exports to other African countries, along with Europe, the United States, and Saudi Arabia.

“The refinery ⁠has built up a large surplus of jet fuel and can supply global markets as rising output attracts growing interest from international crude suppliers and commodity trading firms,” Dangote Petroleum’s CEO David Bird said on June 2.

Amid the ongoing energy supply disruptions due to the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz blockade, Dangote Refinery has emerged as a major supplier in Africa, with the continent’s buyers seeking more reliable sources.

Exports climbed to 353,000 barrels per day in April from 168,000 bpd in February, according to data from analytics firm Kpler, with about half of that volume flowing to other African countries.

Devakumar Edwin, vice president for oil and gas at Dangote Industries, said the ⁠ramp-up forms part of a wider plan to expand capacity to 1.4 million bpd within 30 months, a level that could make the facility one of the largest globally.

Despite the 700,000-bpd surge marking a significant expansion for Africa’s largest refinery ⁠and demonstrating its emergence as a regional supplier, analysts caution it is too early to assess whether the trend represents a lasting shift in trade patterns, particularly after exports pulled back to 285,000 ⁠bpd in May.

“We’re seeing a clear shift toward regional barrels, with Dangote steadily increasing its share of Africa’s seaborne fuel imports,” said Mick Strautmann, market analyst at Vortexa, while interacting with Reuters.

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According to trade intelligence platform Kpler, since the Iran war began, more than 500 million barrels of crude and condensate have been knocked out of the global ⁠market, in what seems to be the largest energy supply disruption of modern history. Talking about the immediate impact, Iain Mowat, principal analyst at Wood Mackenzie, told Reuters that the lost fuel may end up curtailing the aviation industry’s energy demand for 10 weeks.

In the Middle East, countries lost about eight million barrels per day of crude production in March, nearly equivalent to the combined production of Exxon Mobil and Chevron, two of the biggest ‌oil companies ⁠in the world. As per Kpler, jet fuel exports from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman fell from about 19.6 million barrels in February, to just 4.1 million barrels for March and April so far combined.

“With crude prices averaging around USD 100 a barrel since the conflict began, those missing volumes represent roughly USD 50 billion ⁠in lost revenues,” said Johannes Rauball, a senior crude analyst at Kpler.

The ratio equates to a 1% cut in Germany’s annual GDP, or roughly the entire GDP of smaller European countries such as Latvia or Estonia.

Kpler even stated that the resumption of energy trade through the Strait of Hormuz would mean little for the global economy, as recovery of ⁠output and flows will remain slow. While global onshore crude inventories have fallen by about 45 million barrels so far in April, production outages, since late March, have reached roughly 12 million bpd.

“Heavier crude fields in Kuwait and Iraq could take four to five months to return ⁠to normal operating levels, extending stock draws through the summer. Damage to refining capacity and Qatar’s Ras Laffan LNG complex means full restoration of regional energy infrastructure could take years,” Rauball concluded.

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Since the start of the Ukraine war in 2022, energy prices have increased amid the sanction game between Russia and the Western Bloc, thus causing a cost-of-living crisis in markets (especially Europe) that depend on oil imports from Russia. The aviation sector has felt the pinch as well.

Flight tickets have increased due to rising jet fuel costs. According to a CNBC analysis, airfares increased by up to 25% in the United States in 2022, amid soaring inflation. Another 2022 report from Bank of America stated a 60% price increase by airlines and travel companies, thus forcing consumers to pay more for their travel expenses.

Together with the global economic downturn, this increase in ticket prices could offset the aviation sector’s recovery hopes, according to new research from Airports Council International (ACI World).

According to the trade group, approximately 8.4 billion people will fly in 2023, accounting for 92% of all passenger traffic worldwide. This looks to be an improvement over 2022, when 6.5 billion passengers travelled (72% of 2019 levels).

Luis Felipe de Oliveira, director general of ACI World, said, “The increase in aviation travel that followed the removal of restrictions in 2022 is still present in 2023… But, we are aware that the recovery speed depends on several variables. The potential slowing of GDP growth in major economies, coupled with the increase in airfare due to higher jet fuel prices, weigh negatively on demand.”

In February, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted that the global economy would grow by 2.9% in 2023 before increasing to 3.1% in 2024 from a projected 3.4% in 2022.

According to ACI, removing travel restrictions and quarantine requirements for immunised travellers in 2022 has already resulted in an “upsurge in demand” for air travel.

The percentage of respondents who want to travel by air in 2023 in ACI’s Global Traveller Survey, which included 4,125 respondents from 30 countries, was 86%, the highest figure since the start of COVID.

ACI also stated that a “strong labour market and the reopening of China” could help raise global passenger traffic. However, slower GDP growth across nations and rising prices could impact travel demand.

According to the report, domestic travel will be the primary driver of the sector’s recovery to 2019 levels by 2024.

Global passenger traffic is anticipated to reach 19.3 billion by 2041. In the same year, airports will see 153.8 million aircraft movements.

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