Asia’s aviation recovery lags rest of world, but return to pre-Covid levels expected by 2024

ASIA’S passenger aviation recovery still lags the rest of the world because of the region’s delayed reopening from Covid; but industry observers said China and India are expected to drive a return to pre-pandemic levels by 2024.

The Asia-Pacific region saw a 125.6 per cent year-on-year rise in revenue-passenger kilometres (RPK) for the first half of 2023, according to International Air Transport Association figures.

This was the highest for any region. Yet, Asia-Pacific’s RPK also had the greatest gap versus pre-pandemic times: at 20.3 per cent below H1 2019 levels. Africa had the next biggest gap at 9.4 per cent, while North America had the smallest at 0.8 per cent.