Iata has released data showing growing momentum in the recovery of air travel as restrictions are lifted around the world, but reiterates its call for more travel barriers to be removed globally, such as quarantine and testing, to facilitate faster travel recovery.
Iata reported an 11 percentage point increase in international tickets sold in recent weeks (comparing percentages of air tickets sold in proportion to pre-pandemic sales in 2019).
In the seven-day moving average period around February 8, the number of international tickets sold stood at 49% of the volumes sold during the same period in 2019.
Because the period around January 25 saw ticket sales stand at 38%, the 11 percentage point increase is a steep increase in a short amount of time – the fastest such increase for any two-week period since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The jump in ticket sales comes as more governments around the world announce various relaxations of COVID-19 border restrictions. An Iata survey of travel restrictions for the world’s top-50 air travel markets (comprising 92% of global demand in 2019), as measured by revenue passenger kilometres, revealed the growing access available to vaccinated travellers:
- 18 countries (representing about 20% of 2019 demand) are open to vaccinated travellers without quarantine or pre-departure testing requirements.
- 28 countries are open to vaccinated travellers without quarantine requirements (including the 18 above). This comprises about 50% of 2019 demand.
- 37 markets (totalling about 60% of 2019 demand) are open to vaccinated travellers under varying conditions (18 have no restrictions; others require testing or quarantine or both).
“Momentum toward normalising traffic is growing. Vaccinated travellers have the potential to travel much more extensively with fewer hassles than even a few weeks ago. This is giving growing numbers of travellers the confidence to buy tickets. And that is good news! Now we need to further accelerate the removal of travel restrictions,” says Willie Walsh, Iata DG.
“While recent progress is impressive, the world remains far from 2019 levels of connectivity; 13 of the top 50 travel markets still do not provide easy access to all vaccinated travellers. That includes major economies like China, Japan, Russia, Indonesia, and Italy,” Walsh adds.
Iata thus continues to call for removing all barriers to travel for those fully vaccinated with a WHO-approved vaccine, enabling quarantine-free travel for non-vaccinated travellers with a negative pre-departure antigen test result, removing travel bans, and accelerating the easing of travel restrictions worldwide.