Airline Travel Confidence Poll amid COVID-19 Pandemic
The demand for air travel post-COVID-19 is showing a robust recovery, surpassing pre-pandemic levels, but growth is moderating as the market transitions from recovery to a more stable phase of expansion, according to IATA surveys and data from mid-2025.
In June 2025, total global passenger demand, measured in revenue passenger kilometers (RPK), was up 2.6% compared to June 2024. This growth rate, however, has slowed compared to earlier months of 2025. International demand rose by 3.2%, and domestic demand by 1.6%, with load factors remaining robust around 84-85%, slightly below record highs but still strong globally.
Interestingly, total capacity (available seat kilometers, ASK) increased by 3.4%, outpacing demand growth and causing a slight decline in load factors (-0.6 percentage points) compared to June 2024.
A notable demand increase was observed in Latin America and the Caribbean, with a 3.4% rise in passenger traffic in June 2025. LAC-based airlines posted the highest global traffic growth at 7.9% in June.
The broader industry trend reflects a normalization where demand growth is stabilizing after rapid post-pandemic rebounds, impacted somewhat by external factors such as geopolitical conflicts. Projections indicate air travel demand in 2025 is expected to reach about 108% of 2019 levels, confirming the recovery and growth beyond pre-pandemic volumes.
IATA’s Director General, Willie Walsh, expressed a positive outlook, stating that load factors are expected to remain high through the Northern Hemisphere summer of 2025 despite capacity increases.
Scheduled flights resumed from the beginning of June, but the aviation industry has not yet returned to pre-crisis levels. The most significant change in a survey conducted in June is the decline in the ratio of those who will wait a month or two to start flying again. This group, which was on the rise in the survey in April, fell to 33% in June.
However, more than half of the passengers state that they will not board a plane for six months and longer after the epidemic is controlled. This situation is expected to delay the recovery in the aviation sector a little more.
The Coronavirus epidemic had a significant negative impact on the demand for air travel, as revealed by a survey conducted by IATA in eleven different countries to gauge passenger demand. The World Health Organization declared the Covid-19 outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on January 30, 2020.
- The growing demand in the health-and-wellness sector, driven by a focus on personal well-being, may intersect with air travel as passengers opt for stress-relieving activities such as yoga retreats or wellness holidays while traveling.
- During a science conference on global mobility, topics like the environmental impact of travel, health safety measures, and digital transformation in the aviation industry, were discussed alongside lifestyle aspects like travel trends and health-and-wellness in post-pandemic travel experiences.
