Air travel soars higher to 85% of 2019 level, revenue passenger kilometre up 49%

Recovery in air travel continued in December 2022 and was signed up for the whole year compared with 2021.

Domestic air travel in India improved significantly and scaled to 85.7 percent of pre-Covid levels in 2022, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

Recovery in air travel continued in December 2022 and was signed up for the whole year compared with 2021, IATA said earlier in February.

With concerns of fresh Covid-19 outbreaks fading in India, airlines saw a significant improvement in domestic air travel as well as revenue. India's domestic RPKs (revenue passenger kilometres) rose 48.8 percent last year compared with 2021, IATA said.

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Air traffic in December almost matched the 2019 level, falling by just 3.6 percent. In 2022, Indian domestic ASK (available seat kilometres) surged 30.1 percent over the last year.

India's domestic air traffic climbed 13.7 percent on-year to 127.35 lakh passengers in December 2022, data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) showed on January 19.

For the other Asia Pacific domestic markets, domestic traffic measured by RPK rebounded by 75.9 percent in Japan compared with 2021 to achieve 74.1 percent of 2019 levels.

With China still very much under Covid-19 restrictions in 2022, RPK and ASK fell 39.8 percent and 35.2 percent, respectively, compared with 2021.

Globally, total passenger traffic (domestic plus international) in 2022 climbed 64.4 percent, compared with a year ago with full-year global passenger traffic at 68.5 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

International air traffic in 2022 spiked 152.7 percent over the 2021 level to attain 62.2 percent of 2019 levels. December 2022 international traffic soared 80.2 percent compared with December 2021, reaching 75.1 percent of the level in December 2019, according to IATA.