The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has announced healthy global passenger demand for July with all regions reporting growth.
Total revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs) rose 6.2%, compared to the same month last year.
While this was down from 8.1% year-over-year growth in June, it nevertheless marked a solid start to the peak passenger demand season.
Monthly capacity (available seat kilometers or ASKs) increased by 5.5% and load factor rose 0.6 percentage points to a record high for July of 85.2%.
Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s Director General and CEO, said: “The industry posted another month of solid traffic growth, and the record load factor shows that airlines are becoming even more efficient in terms of deploying capacity to meet demand.
“However, rising costs - particularly fuel - will likely limit the stimulus we would expect from lower airfares. Therefore, we do expect to see a continued slowing of growth compared to 2017.”
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Middle East carriers had a 4.8% increase in demand for July, well down on the 11.2% growth recorded for June, although this mainly is attributable to volatility in the data a year ago, rather than any major new developments.
The region has been negatively impacted by a number of policy measures over the past 18 months, including the ban on portable electronic devices and travel restrictions.
July capacity climbed 6.5% compared to a year ago and load factor dropped 1.3 percentage points to 80.3%.
Read more: IATA - Global Air Cargo Sees July Jump
