IATA Predicts Airline Return to Profitability in 2023

In the midst of an unprecedented, oxymoronic moment in aviation – surging demand in the number of travelers itching to return to air travel coupled with short-staffed airlines forced to delay and cancel thousands of flights – the chief of the industry’s biggest trade group expressed optimism that the sector will return to profitability in 2023.

International Air Transport Association (IATA) Director General Willie Walsh, speaking this morning at the group’s annual convention in Doha, Qatar, said that goal is “within reach” after watching the progress airlines have made since the devastation wrought by the pandemic.

Walsh said airlines worldwide lost $137 billion in 2020 when COVID-19 hit early in the year, $42 billion last year, and are on pace for a loss of $9.7 billion this year.

At that rate, Walsh is optimistic that airlines can regain profitable status next year.

“Airlines are resilient,” he said, according to Reuters News Service. “People are flying in greater numbers, and cargo is performing well against a backdrop of growing economic uncertainty.”

Capacity on airlines plummeted during the last two years and are only now getting close to where it was in pre-pandemic 2019. Walsh pegged the worldwide number at an 83 percent capacity compared to three years ago but that number is much higher in the U.S.

Sunday marked the 15th consecutive day that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screened more than 2 million passengers and the 20th day in the last 21. On Friday, June 17, some 2,438,734 passengers took to the air at U.S. airports, the highest total in all of 2022 so far and 88 percent of the capacity on the same day in 2019.

Walsh added that he is “not concerned” with the current supply and demand issues going on in the industry and that it will correct itself over time.