by Jen Mallia
Last updated: 10:00 AM ET, Thu May 1, 2025
IATA released its numbers for March, revealing a growing passenger demand in most of the categories it measures.
Based on IATA statistics which cover international and domestic scheduled air traffic for IATA member and non-member airlines, the data show an overall 3.3 percent growth in passenger demand for March 2025, compared with March 2024. The measurement for demand is based on revenue passenger kilometres (RPK).
Total capacity, which is measured in available seat kilometers (ASK), was up 5.3 percent year-on-year. The March load factor was 80.7%, down (-1.6 ppt) from last year.
Domestic demand was up in four of the six markets IATA reports on — Brazil, China, India and Japan — but down in Australia and the U.S., so overall the growth was a modest 0.9 percent. Load factor fell (-1.3 ppt) and capacity grew (2.5 percent).
International market growth was a bit more robust, with a 4.9 percent RPK increase over March 2024. That reflects a bit of a slowdown compared with the first two months of the year, which showed growth of 12.5 percent and 5.9 percent, respectively. IATA stated the slowing growth is reflective of “the final normalization of year-on-year demand comparisons post-COVID.”
When the data is broken down by region, it shows the strongest growth for international traffic for Asian-Pacific airlines (9.9 percent). Load factor was down in every region.
The report states North American carriers saw a -0.1 percent year-on-year fall in demand. Capacity increased 2.0 percent compared with March 2024 and the load factor was 83.0% (-1.8 ppt compared to March 2024). The slipping demand continues the trend that was noted in February by IATA, but the report notes “that this is an improvement on the -1.5% decline reported for February.”
Topics From This Article to Explore
