Air travel levels will gain more altitude this year after traffic overtook pre-Covid totals in 2023, according to Irish aircraft lessor SMBC Capital Aviation.
“However, we see further upside, with published schedules indicating further growth in quarter-one 2024,” says the report, called Push and Pull Factors on Aircraft Lease Rates.Could empty nesters be crucial to solving the housing crisis?SMBC’s figures confirm that 2022 was a key year for post-Covid recovery in travel, with year-on-year air traffic doubling in Europe, topping 140 per cent in the Middle East and hitting 80 per cent in Africa.
While business travellers have been slower to take to the skies, SMBC says some airlines at least have noticed that more affluent holidaymakers are filling aircraft premium cabins instead. The SMBC report says it will take “some time” for carriers to recover the near $140 billion losses they suffered in 2020, when governments shut down travel to curb Covid-19′s spread.