Demand for air travel will more than double by 2050 | News
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has released its Long-Term Demand Projections (LTDP) for air travel, showing that global air passenger demand is expected to more than double by 2050.
In the middle scenario, demand is expected to reach 20.8 trillion passenger kilometers (RPKs), based on a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.1% (2024-2050) from 9 trillion RPKs in 2024.
A higher growth scenario would see a CAGR of 3.3%, with passenger demand reaching 21.9 trillion RPKs by 2050. A lower growth scenario would see a CAGR of 2.9%, with passenger demand reaching 19.5 trillion RPKs by 2050.
The different scenarios are driven by alternative models of long-term economic growth, population, aviation fuel price trends, global energy transition and air transport supply-side capacity development.
“The outlook for air travel is positive. People want to travel and, under all our modeled scenarios, demand for flying is expected to more than double by mid-century. That’s good news for global economic and social development, as aviation growth will catalyze opportunities, including jobs, around the world. Our long-term demand report provides governments, industry and energy suppliers with a robust foundation for long-term planning. It underlines the need for policy frameworks to support key success factors such as efficient infrastructure development and market access facilitation, regulatory harmonization and an effective clean energy transition,” said Willie Walsh, Director General of IATA.
Regional outlook: Growth concentrated in emerging markets
The growth rate will be uneven across regions, due to differences in demographics, market maturity, economic development and connectivity potential. In the middle scenario, Asia Pacific and Africa are expected to be the fastest growing regions over the period 2024-2050, with CAGRs of 3.8% and 3.6% respectively. Europe and North America are expected to grow more slowly, at 2.5% and 2.8% respectively.
The LTDP identifies the fastest growing markets as intra-Africa (4.9%), Africa-Asia-Pacific (4.5%), Asia-Pacific-Middle East (3.9%), intra-Asia-Pacific (3.9%) and Africa-North America (3.8%), highlighting the importance of investing in aviation infrastructure and regulatory frameworks in developing regions. In contrast, several European-focused markets are among the slowest growing.
Long-term global trends
Two long-term trends identified in the report are worth noting:
The LTDP confirms that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a permanent structural shift in global aviation demand. Unlike previous crises, the unprecedented collapse of the RPK has created a persistent gap that is not expected to return to the pre-pandemic GDP-oriented trend in 2050, even under the high growth scenario.
Although demand remains robust in the long term, the growth rate is gradually slowing. Historical analyzes show that average annual growth has slowed from 6.1% CAGR between 1972 and 1998, to 4.5% CAGR between 1998 and 2024. The central scenario for 2024-2050 predicts a further slowdown to 3.1% CAGR. This gradual moderation reflects market maturity rather than a weakening in demand, as absolute passenger numbers continue to rise significantly.
Factors that influence the model
IATA’s proprietary model used by the LTDP is based on a comprehensive global econometric model built on the best available data from international institutions and IATA’s own DDS demand database. The unique dataset compiled for this work includes more than half a million observations over approximately 41,000 directional country pairs over 14 years, from 2011 to 2024. The LTDP model includes population, employment, flight frequencies and aircraft size at the country level. The main demand driver is real GDP (gross domestic product) per capita, adjusted for PPP (purchasing power parity). Country-specific long-term economic projections are obtained from the publicly available OECD global long-term economic scenarios. The LTDP scenarios are also linked to scenarios on how the evolution of the global energy transition could influence long-term demand. The model’s projection performance has been validated against historical data and shows an average forecast accuracy of 98% at the industry level.
