China to overtake US as largest air passenger market

 

China will overtake the US as the world’s largest passenger market defined by traffic to, from and within by 2030, according to a new global aviation report.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) in its first 20-year passenger growth forecast said the US will remain the largest air passenger market until the year 2030, when it will drop to second position, behind China.

Cumulatively, over the next 20 years the US will transport 18.3 billion more passengers and China 16.9 billion.

Both markets, however, are expected to remain the largest by a wide margin. In 2034, flights to, from and within China will account for some 1.3 billion passengers, 856 million more than 2014 with an average annual growth rate of 5.5 per cent.

Traffic to, from and within the US is expected to grow at an average annual growth rate of 3.2 per cent that will see 1.2 billion passengers travelling by 2034 (559 million more than 2014).

IATA projects that the international passenger numbers will reach 7.3 billion by 2034. This represents a 4.1 per cent average annual growth in demand for air connectivity that will result in more than a doubling of the 3.3 billion passengers expected to travel this year.

The report, the first from the new IATA Passenger Forecasting service, produced in association with Tourism Economics, analyses passenger flows across 4,000 country pairs for the next 20 years, forecasting passenger numbers by way of three key demand drivers such as living standards, population and demographics, and price and availability.

By 2034 the five fastest-increasing markets in terms of additional passengers per year will be China (856 million new passengers per year), the US (559 million), India (266 million), Indonesia (183 million) and Brazil (170 million).

Exciting prospect

Eight of the ten fastest-growing markets in percentage terms will be in Africa with the Central African Republic, Madagascar, Tanzania, Burundi and Kuwait making up the five fastest-growing markets.

“It is an exciting prospect to think that in the next 20 years, more than twice as many passengers as today will have the chance to fly,” said IATA Director General and CEO Tony Tyler.

“Air connectivity on this scale will help transform economic opportunities for millions of people. At present, aviation helps sustain 58 million jobs and $2.4 trillion in economic activity. In 20 years, we can expect aviation to be supporting around 105 million jobs and $6 trillion in gross domestic product,” he added.

“Meeting the potential demand will require government policies that support the economic benefits that growing connectivity makes possible.

“Airlines can only fly where there is infrastructure to accommodate them. Air connectivity can only thrive when nations open their skies and their markets.”

Currently the ninth-largest market, India, will see a total of 367 million passengers by 2034 — an extra 266 million annual passengers — and will overtake the UK to become third largest market around 2031.

“The first century of air travel has seen about 65 billion passengers take to the sky. The next 65 billion will fly in just the next 20 years,” added Tyler in a statement.

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