IATA: airlines produce $23.3 billion in profits but margins remain slim

The global airline industry is expected to generate $23.3 billion in net profits this year, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said in its latest forecast during Global Media Day in Geneva. This is more than double that of the $9.8 billion that IATA guided in June during the AGM in Istanbul

, which itself was twice the $4.7 billion guided for this year in December 2022. For 2024, the trend is that of stabilization, although there is certainly room to improve net profit margins.

2023 Has seen a remarkable recovery from the pandemic years. Remember that the industry suffered a $-137.7 billion net loss in 2020, the first year of Covid. This was reduced to $-41 billion in 2021 and to $-3.8 billion in 2022. Operating profits are guided at $40.7 billion. At 84.2 percent, the industry load factor is almost back to 84.5 in 2019 but exceeding 2019 in the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. As Director General Willie Walsh said, it has taken the industry four years to recover from the pandemic.

Traffic has recovered to just 2 to 2.5 percent below 2019 levels, with domestic revenue passenger kilometers (RTK) up 4.8 percent year on year but international RPKs are still at -5.6 percent of pre-pandemic levels. In the forecast, global RPKs are up 38.4 percent year on year. Cargo tonne-kilometers (CTK) were up 4.5 percent this year.