wats-infographic-image.png

IATA World Air Transport Statistics Released

Translation:

Nuevo récord de pasajeros aéreos en 2017

Montreal – The International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced industry performance statistics for 2017. Worldwide annual air passenger numbers exceeded four billion for the first time, supported by a broad-based improvement in global economic conditions and lower average airfares. At the same time, airlines connected a record number of cities worldwide, providing regular services to over 20,000 city pairs* in 2017, more than double the level of 1995. Such increases in direct services improve the industry’s efficiency by cutting costs and saving time for both travelers and shippers alike.

This information is included in the recently released 62nd Edition of the World Air Transport Statistics (WATS), the yearbook of the airline industry’s performance.

“In 2000, the average citizen flew just once every 43 months. In 2017, the figure was once every 22 months. Flying has never been more accessible. And this is liberating people to explore more of our planet for work, leisure and education. Aviation is the business of freedom,” said Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s Director General and CEO.

Highlights of the 2017 airline industry performance:

Passenger

  • System-wide, airlines carried 4.1 billion passengers on scheduled services, an increase of 7.3% over 2016, representing an additional 280 million trips by air.
  • Airlines in the Asia-Pacific region once again carried the largest number of passengers. The regional rankings (based on total passengers carried on scheduled services by airlines registered in that region) are:
    1. Asia-Pacific 36.3% market share (1.5 billion passengers, an increase of 10.6% compared to the region’s passengers in 2016)
    2. Europe 26.3% market share (1.1 billion passengers, up 8.2% over 2016)
    3. North America 23% market share (941.8 million, up 3.2% over 2016)
    4. Latin America 7% market share (286.1 million, up 4.1% over 2016)
    5. Middle East 5.3% market share (216.1 million, an increase of 4.6% over 2016)
    6. Africa 2.2% market share (88.5 million, up 6.6% over 2016).
  • The top five airlines ranked by total scheduled passenger kilometers flown, were:
    1. American Airlines (324 billion)
    2. Delta Air Lines (316.3 billion)
    3. United Airlines (311 billion)
    4. Emirates Airline (289 billion)
    5. Southwest Airlines (207.7 billion)
  • The top five international/regional passenger airport-pairs** were all within the Asia-Pacific region, again this year:
    1. Hong Kong-Taipei Taoyuan (5.4 million, up 1.8% from 2016)
    2. Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta-Singapore (3.3 million, up 0.8% from 2016)
    3. Bangkok Suvarnabhumi-Hong Kong (3.1 million, increase of 3.5% from 2016)
    4. Kuala Lumpur–Singapore (2.8 million, down. 0.3% from 2016)
    5. Hong Kong-Seoul Incheon (2.7 million, down 2.2% from 2016)
  • The top five domestic passenger airport-pairs** were also all in the Asia-Pacific region:
    1. Jeju-Seoul Gimpo (13.5 million, up 14.8% over 2016)
    2. Melbourne Tullamarine-Sydney (7.8 million, up 0.4% from 2016)
    3. Fukuoka-Tokyo Haneda (7.6 million, an increase of 6.1% from 2016)
    4. Sapporo-Tokyo Haneda (7.4 million, up 4.6% from 2016)
    5. Beijing Capital-Shanghai Hongqiao (6.4 million, up 1.9% from 2016)
  • One of the interesting recent additions to the WATS report is the ranking of passenger traffic by nationality, for international and domestic travel. (Nationality refers to the passenger’s citizenship as opposed to the country of residence.)
    1. United States of America (632 million, representing 18.6% of all passengers)
    2. People’s Republic of China (555 million or 16.3% of all passengers)
    3. India (161.5 million or 4.7% of all passengers)
    4. United Kingdom (147 million or 4.3% of all passengers)
    5. Germany (114.4 million or 3.4% of all passengers)

Cargo

  • Globally, cargo markets showed a 9.9% expansion in freight and mail tonne kilometers (FTKs). This outstripped a capacity increase of 5.3% increasing freight load factor by 2.1%.
  • The top five airlines ranked by scheduled freight tonne kilometers flown were:
    1. Federal Express (16.9 billion)
    2. Emirates (12.7 billion)
    3. United Parcel Service (11.9 billion)
    4. Qatar Airways (11 billion)
    5. Cathay Pacific Airways (10.8 billion)

Airline Alliances

  • Star Alliance maintained its position as the largest airline alliance in 2017 with 22% of total scheduled traffic (in RPKs), followed by SkyTeam (19%) and oneworld (16%).


The complete 62nd WATS is available for purchase on IATA’s website at www.iata.org/wats.

For more information, please contact:

Corporate Communications
Tel: +41 22 770 2967
Email: corpcomms@iata.org

Notes for Editors:

*City pairs are counted unidirectionally and only for aircraft with more than 19 seats and at least one flight frequency on average per week. Connectivity can also be calculated by routes which now total more than 55,000. Routes are based on airport (not city) pairs and are counted bi-directionally, regardless of aircraft size and flight frequency.

**Airport pairs are counted bi-directionally on an origin-destination basis, including traffic that may have had intermediate connections

  • IATA (International Air Transport Association) represents some 290 airlines comprising 82% of global air traffic.
  • You can follow us at http://twitter.com/iata for announcements, policy positions, and other useful industry information.
  • Take a look at the Infographic illustrating airline rankings by RPK and FTK taken from WATS 2018