Asia-Pacific could lose biggest aviation market tag
New Delhi, Sep 19 (UNI) Asia-Pacific could lose the world’s largest air passenger market for 2022 as China continues to follow strict border rules and Japan remains cautious about easing restrictions on inbound travel, according to Airports Council International (ACI) forward estimates released Monday.
“Asia-Pacific, which dominated the civil aviation market for several years before the pandemic, is expected to finish second, behind Europe in terms of passenger share and comparable to North America” , said the aviation industry body.
ACI’s latest forecast for Asia-Pacific indicates that by the end of 2022, passenger traffic will only recover by around 55% from pre-pandemic levels. This is in stark contrast to other regions where the recovery is significantly higher, and in fact estimated at around 70-80% respectively.
According to the ACI, no less than 3.38 billion passengers traveled by air in Asia-Pacific in 2019, representing 37% of the global volume of 9.16 billion. After phenomenal growth, 2020 has been a pivotal year for aviation as the Covid-19 pandemic crippled the industry.
“In 2020, the region recorded only 1.57 billion passengers, an unprecedented 53% collapse in traffic due to pandemic-induced restrictions across the world. However, Asia-Pacific dominated the share of traffic by contributing 1.57 billion passengers or 44% of the global traffic of 3.6 billion. Home to several major domestic markets, the region has shown noticeable resilience in air traffic,” said the industry body.
In 2021, 1.50 billion people traveled by plane in Asia-Pacific, experiencing a slight decrease of 4% compared to 2020, but remained the first region accounting for 33% of the world’s 4.6 billion passengers, it said. -he adds.
“Although ACI’s latest forecast forecasts a 22% growth for the year 2022 compared to 2021, the share of passenger traffic in Asia-Pacific is expected to fall to second in the world, with an estimated traffic of 1.84 billion passengers – a drop of -45”. percent compared to 2019,” the ICA press release reads.
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