The traffic volume, measured in revenue passenger kilometres or RPKs, was also down 9.7% from that of December 2020.
“This year is starting off worse than how 2020 ended and that is saying a lot. Even as vaccination programmes gather pace, new Covid variants are leading governments to increase travel restrictions,” IATA director-general and chief executive Alexandre de Juniac said in a statement.
“The uncertainty around how long these restrictions will last also has an impact on future travel. Forward bookings in February this year for the Northern Hemisphere summer travel season were 78% below levels in February 2019.”
IATA said comparisons between 2021 and 2020 monthly results were distorted by the “extraordinary impact” of Covid-19, and that they were being compared to January 2019, which followed a normal demand pattern.
It said total domestic demand was down 47.4% versus pre-crisis levels. In December, it was down 42.9% on the previous year.
This weakening was largely driven by stricter domestic travel controls in China over the Lunar New Year holiday period.
International passenger demand in January was 85.6% below January 2019, a further drop compared to the 85.3% year-to-year decline recorded in December.
Asia Pacific Airlines’ January traffic plummeted 94.6% compared to the 2019 period, virtually unchanged from the 94.4% decline registered in December compared to a year ago.
“The region continued to suffer from the steepest traffic declines for the seventh consecutive month. Capacity dropped 86.5% and load factor sank 49.4 percentage points to 32.6%, by far the lowest among regions,” said IATA, which represents some 290 airlines comprising 82% of global air traffic.
“To say that 2021 has not got off to a good start is an understatement. Financial prospects for the year are worsening as governments tighten travel restrictions. We now expect the industry to burn through US$75-US$95 billion in cash this year, rather than turning cash positive in the fourth quarter, as previously thought.
“This is not something that the industry will be able to endure without additional relief measures from governments.
“Increased testing capability and vaccine distribution are the key factors for governments to unlock economic activity, including travel. It is critical that governments build and share their restart plans along with the benchmarks that will guide them. This will enable the industry to be prepared to energise the recovery without any unnecessary delay,” de Juniac said.
He said global standards to securely record test and vaccination data in formats that will be internationally recognised are urgently needed.
“These will be critical to restarting international travel if governments continue to require verified testing or vaccination data. IATA will soon launch the IATA Travel Pass to help travellers and governments manage digital health credentials. But the full benefit of IATA Travel Pass cannot be realised until governments agree the standards for the information they want,” he said.
IATA said, however, that global air cargo markets showed that air cargo demand in January returned to pre-Covid levels for the first time since the onset of the crisis. January demand also showed strong month-to-month growth over December 2020 levels.
Global air cargo demand, measured in cargo tonne-kilometres (CTKs), was up 1.1% compared to January 2019 and 3% compared to December 2020.
All regions saw month-on-month improvement in air cargo demand, and North America and Africa were the strongest performers.
“Air cargo traffic is back to pre-crisis levels and that is some much-needed good news for the global economy. But while there is a strong demand to ship goods, our ability is capped by the shortage of belly capacity normally provided by passenger aircraft,” de Juniac said.
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