Growth in international flight bookings to stall in July after June growth: IATA

Quantum Commodity Intelligence - The recovery in booking international flights looks to have paused in July amid the resurgence of Covid around the world, noted the International Air Transport Association (IATA) Thursday, saying holiday bookings on key routes had stalled.

Industry-wide traffic, measured by distance flown by passengers worldwide, edged higher to 39.9% of pre-crisis levels in June 2019, up modestly from 37.1% in May, according to IATA.

But international flights were still only 29.1% of levels seen two years earlier, while domestic flights reached 81.6% of levels seen in June 2019 and IATA has warned that growth for July will be muted.

"On the international side, bookings had been trending upwards until early-June but more recently the recovery has paused," the trade body said.

"The deterioration partly reflects the latest pandemic developments," IATA said, adding that the rise in summer bookings has stopped on some important routes.

"The spread of new variants and associated new lockdowns will remain the main risk for air travel recovery in the second half of the year," it added.

Meanwhile, bookings for ticket sales on domestic routes have continued to trend upwards, driven largely by key markets such as the US, where they are already hovering around pre-crisis levels.

Elsewhere, the global air cargo business continued to remain robust in June, the trade body added.

Air cargo volumes, measured by how many tons were carried a kilometre, remained stable in June from May, and were up 9.1% from the same month in 2019.