New Delhi: Global air passenger demand is expected to more than double by 2050, according to IATA’s long-term demand projections (LTDP) released on Tuesday.
Under the mid-range global economic growth scenario, demand is projected to reach 20.8 trillion revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs), based on a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.1% (2024-50) from the 9 trillion RPKs recorded in 2024.
A higher growth scenario would result in a 3.3% CAGR with passenger demand reaching 21.9 trillion RPKs in 2050. A lower growth scenario would see a 2.9% CAGR with passenger demand reaching 19.5 trillion RPKs by 2050.
The different scenarios are driven by alternative modelling of long-term global economic growth, population trends, aviation fuel price developments, the global energy transition, and air transport supply-side capacity expansion.
“The outlook for air travel is positive. People want to travel and, under all our modelled scenarios, the demand to fly is expected to more than double by mid-century. That is good news for global economic and social development because aviation growth will catalyse opportunities, including jobs, around the world,” said Willie Walsh, IATA Director General.
“Our long-term demand report gives governments, industry, and energy suppliers a robust basis for long term planning. It underscores the need for policy frameworks to support key success enablers such as efficient infrastructure development, market access facilitation, regulatory harmonization, and an effective clean energy transition,” he added.
Dual Trends
Two long-term trends identified in the report are worth noting, the report highlights.
The LTDPs confirm that the Covid-19 pandemic caused a lasting structural shift in global aviation demand. Unlike previous crises, the unprecedented collapse in RPK has created a persistent gap that is not expected to return to the pre-pandemic GDP-aligned trend by 2050, even under the high growth scenario.
While long-term demand remains strong, the growth rate is gradually moderating. Historical analysis shows that average annual growth slowed from 6.1% CAGR between 1972 and 1998, to 4.5% CAGR between 1998 and 2024. The central scenario for 2024-50 projects a further slowdown to 3.1% CAGR. This gradual moderation reflects market maturity rather than weakening demand, as absolute passenger numbers continue to increase significantly.
Demand Drivers
IATA’s proprietary model used for these projections is based on a comprehensive global econometric framework built on the best available data from international institutions and IATA’s own DDS demand database. The dataset compiled for this analysis includes more than half a million observations across around 41,000 directional country pairs over 14 years from 2011 to 2024. The LTDP model incorporates population, employment, flight frequencies, and aircraft size at the country level.
The most important demand driver is real GDP per capita, adjusted for PPP (purchasing power parity). Long-term country-specific economic projections are sourced from publicly available OECD global long-run economic scenarios. The LTDP scenarios are also linked to projections on how the evolution of the global energy transition may influence long-term demand.
The model’s projection performance has been validated against historical data and demonstrates an average prediction accuracy of 98% at the industry level.
Regional Outlook
The pace of growth will vary across regions, reflecting differences in demographics, market maturity, economic development, and connectivity potential, the report says.
Under the mid-range scenario, Asia Pacific and Africa are expected to be the fastest growing regions over 2024-50, with CAGRs of 3.8% and 3.6% respectively. Europe and North America are projected to grow more slowly, at 2.5% and 2.8%.
The report 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 investment in aviation infrastructure and regulatory frameworks in developing regions. By contrast, several Europe-centred markets are among the slowest growing.
“Africa and the Middle East markets have relatively larger differences between the scenario outcomes because the two regions’ economic growth is expected to be more affected by the energy transition paths. Notably, the Middle East market exhibits a structurally distinct demand profile, in which strong overall traffic growth is to a large extent driven by transfer demand that facilitates long-haul connections between Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania,” the report says.
Global air travel demand has followed a remarkably consistent upward trajectory (except for the Covid period) over the past 64 years, and this momentum is expected to continue through 2050. Since 1960, global RPK has expanded more than 60-fold, with a CAGR of 6.7%. While the CAGR of global RPKs for the next 27 years (2024-50) is projected to moderate to around 2.9%-3.3%, the overall trend remains firmly positive, says IATA.
(Cover photo by Mohammad Arrahmanur on Unsplash)