The global airline industry is expected to cut losses in 2022 by 78% to $12 billion in slow pandemic recovery

October 6, 2021: -On Monday, the global airline industry is expected to lose close to $12 billion in the coming year, cutting its losses from this year by 78% as carriers slowly recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, the International Air Transport Association said in a forecast.

The IATA, which represents almost 300 airlines that operate over 80% of the world’s air traffic, said industry losses in the year 2021 will be worse than initially thought, totaling $51.8 billion, widened from a forecast in April of $47.7 billion.

The net losses of 2020 were $137.7 billion, over the $126.4 billion the IATA estimated and bringing the industry’s total net losses from the pandemic to over $200 billion.

“We are past the deepest point of the crisis,” IATA’s director-general, Willie Walsh, said in the group’s annual meeting, which was held in Boston. It was its first in-person annual meeting since June 2019. “While serious issues remain, the path to recovery has come into view.”

The IATA forecast the industry would return to profitability in the year 2023 and said the total passenger numbers rising to 3.4 billion people from the coming year from 2.3 billion this year.

Walsh said the lifting of international travel restrictions tied to the pandemic would fuel bookings but is slamming countries’ lack of uniform guidelines on safety protocols like Covid testing windows, age exemptions, and methods to validate vaccinations.

Last month, the Biden administration said that in November, it would lift bans on international visitors that were put in place early in the pandemic. Still, officials haven’t yet disclosed a date.