Air Travel in March 2025: Global Passenger Growth Slows as Load Factors Dip

Tepid Global Growth Amid Rising Capacity

In March 2025, global Revenue Passenger Kilometers (RPKs) increased by 3.3% year-on-year, totaling 738.8 billion. However, with seat capacity (Available Seat Kilometers or ASKs) growing by 5.3%, the Passenger Load Factor (PLF) fell by 1.6 percentage points to 80.7%, reflecting an imbalance between demand and supply.

International vs. Domestic Markets

International Market

International RPKs grew by 4.9% compared to March 2024, driven mainly by airlines in Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region. However, capacity expansion outpaced traffic growth, leading to a dip in load factor to below 80%.

Asia-Pacific carriers recorded a 9.9% increase in international traffic.
Carriers in North America and the Middle East experienced slight declines, with Ramadan contributing to the softening in Middle Eastern demand.

Domestic Market

Domestic traffic grew by 0.9% YoY, a slight improvement from February’s decline. Still, the domestic PLF dropped to 82.0%.

India led domestic growth with an 11% increase in RPKs.
Japan saw a record-high March PLF of 84.4%.
The United States and Australia continued to contract, negatively impacting the global domestic segment.

Regional Highlights

Asia-Pacific

Asia-Pacific airlines outperformed all regions, boasting the highest PLF at 83.5%. Strong performance in domestic markets like China, India, and Japan contributed to this success.

North America

North American airlines experienced a second consecutive monthly decline in traffic (-1.1%). Despite increasing seat capacity by 3.5%, the region’s PLF dropped to 81.4%, with the US domestic market hitting a low of 80.3%.

Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Middle East

Europe and Africa posted growth of 4.4% and 4.1% respectively.
Latin America continued its upward trend with a 6.2% growth in traffic.
The Middle East faced a 0.7% decline, primarily due to the Ramadan season covering all of March this year.

Route Trends

Asia-centered routes continue to drive growth:

North America to Asia traffic rose by 11.8%.
Within-Asia, Europe-Asia, and Africa-Asia routes showed strong double-digit increases.
Europe-North America traffic declined by 1.0%, the first YoY drop since 2021.

Outlook for Air Travel

Despite ongoing economic and geopolitical uncertainties, global flight activity is projected to remain on a growth path. Scheduled flights for May 2025 are expected to rise by 3.9% over May 2024, continuing the upward trend seen in the first quarter of the year.

Conclusion

March 2025 reflects a mixed bag for the aviation industry. While growth continues, it is increasingly driven by selective markets such as Asia-Pacific and India. Airlines will need to navigate capacity management carefully and focus on high-potential routes to ensure long-term sustainability and profitability.

Source: IATA Air Passenger Market Analysis – March 2025