Beautiful Virgin Islands

Thursday, Oct 30, 2025

The world's airlines say they won't recover until 2024, reflecting a new wave of pessimism as the pandemic rages on

The world's airlines say they won't recover until 2024, reflecting a new wave of pessimism as the pandemic rages on

The International Air Transport Association, which represents most of the world's major airlines, said it does not expect the airline industry to recover from the coronavirus pandemic until 2024.. The timeline, along with recent comments from airline executives, reflects a new level of public pessimism about when business will return to normal.. Industry analysts offered that timeline as early as April, when airlines were painting a rosier picture. Here's what led the world's largest airline trade group to agree.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA), a global trade group representing most of the world's major airlines and cargo carriers, said earlier this week that it does not expect the air travel industry to recover from the hit dealt to it by the coronavirus pandemic before 2024.

That timeline, which defines "recovery" as a return to 2019 levels of traffic and revenue, is the most dire yet offered by the group, which had previously forecast a bounce back by 2023.

"Ahead of any vaccine, it really does depend on how well countries manage to control the virus," IATA's chief economist, Brian Pearce, said in a briefing on Tuesday. "That is clearly going to be an issue with the recovery. What we haven't seen is the sort of progress that we need."

The bulk of the problem is that the flying public has relatively little interest in flying. "While pent-up demand exists for VFR (visiting friends and relatives) and leisure travel, consumer confidence is weak in the face of concerns over job security and rising unemployment, as well as risks of catching COVID-19," IATA said in a press release.

Moreover, corporate travel staying down as companies seek to cut costs and adjust to remote meetings will hamper a recovery, IATA said. Even as the economy picks back up, business travel may be slow to return.

"Corporate travel budgets are expected to be very constrained as companies continue to be under financial pressure even as the economy improves," IATA said. The group said surveys indicate that the link between GDP growth and business travel has frayed, as videoconferencing makes in-person meetings less necessary.

IATA's revised timeline represents the culmination of a new wave of pessimism from airlines about the travel recovery.

In the early months of the pandemic, most carriers suggested a two- to three-year timeframe for recovery. One exception was Southwest CEO Gary Kelly, who offered a five-year timetable in April. "Based on history, in a recessionary environment, it is a long recovery period for businesses," Kelly said on his first quarter earnings call. "This one feels like it could be worse."

Industry analysts, too, were quick to predict a long road to recovery. Travel demand fell off in the Asia region in mid-to-late January, and cratered in the rest of the world in mid-March. While analysts in January had envisioned a V-shaped recovery if the impact spread to US and Europe markets, by April, that hope had evaporated.

"We are growing increasingly convinced that industry recovery to 2019 levels of output will be a multi-year affair," analyst Jamie Baker of JPMorgan wrote in early April, "resulting in the material shedding of aircraft and headcount along the way."

"We expect it to take 2 to 5 years to recover to 2019 levels," analyst Helane Becker of Cowen wrote in a lengthy April 13 report titled A Winding Road to Recovery, adding: "our working assumption is 2021 revenues will be back to 2016 levels."

"Unfortunately, return to work might not mean immediate return to the air," she added. "It is highly likely that any recovery won't start until the fourth quarter at the earliest, and then continue slowly through 2021 and into 2022."

Other leading analysts, including Jamie Baker of JPMorgan and Andrew Didora of Bank of America, also continue to suggest a similar timeline, pointing to 3-4 year targets in recent research notes.

And now, the airlines themselves agree: The road back to "normal" won't just be rough, but long.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
UK and Vietnam Sign Landmark Migration Deal to Fast-Track Returns of Irregular Arrivals
UK Drug-Pricing Overhaul Essential for Life-Sciences Ambition, Says GSK Chief
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie Temporarily Leave the UK Amid Their Parents’ Royal Fallout
UK Weighs Early End to Oil and Gas Windfall Tax as Reeves Seeks Investment Commitments
UK Retail Inflation Slows as Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since Spring
Next Raises Full-Year Profit Guidance After Strong Third-Quarter Performance
Reform UK’s Lee Anderson Admits to 'Gaming' Benefits System While Advocating Crackdown
United States and South Korea Conclude Major Trade Accord Worth $350 Billion
Hurricane Melissa Strikes Cuba After Devastating Jamaica With Record Winds
Vice President Vance to Headline Turning Point USA Campus Event at Ole Miss
U.S. Targets Maritime Narco-Routes While Border Pressure to Mexico Remains Limited
Bill Gates at 70: “I Have a Real Fear of Artificial Intelligence – and Also Regret”
Elon Musk Unveils Grokipedia: An AI-Driven Alternative to Wikipedia
Saudi Arabia Unveils Vision for First-Ever "Sky Stadium" Suspended Over Desert Floor
Amazon Announces 14 000 Corporate Job Cuts as AI Investment Accelerates
UK Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since March, Food Leads the Decline
London Stock Exchange Group ADR (LNSTY) Earns Zacks Rank #1 Upgrade on Rising Earnings Outlook
Soap legend Tony Adams, long-time star of Crossroads, dies at 84
Rachel Reeves Signals Tax Increases Ahead of November Budget Amid £20-50 Billion Fiscal Gap
NatWest Past Gains of 314% Spotlight Opportunity — But Some Key Risks Remain
UK Launches ‘Golden Age’ of Nuclear with £38 Billion Sizewell C Approval
UK Announces £1.08 Billion Budget for Offshore Wind Auction to Boost 2030 Capacity
UK Seeks Steel Alliance with EU and US to Counter China’s Over-Capacity
UK Struggles to Balance China as Both Strategic Threat and Valued Trading Partner
Argentina’s Markets Surge as Milei’s Party Secures Major Win
British Journalist Sami Hamdi Detained by U.S. Authorities After Visa Revocation Amid Israel-Gaza Commentary
King Charles Unveils UK’s First LGBT+ Armed Forces Memorial at National Memorial Arboretum
At ninety-two and re-elected: Paul Biya secures eighth term in Cameroon amid unrest
Racist Incidents Against UK Nurses Surge by 55%
UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves Cites Shared Concerns With Trump Administration as Foundation for Early US-UK Trade Deal
Essentra plc: A Closer Look at a UK ‘Penny Stock’ Opportunity Amid Market Weakness
U.S. and China Near Deal to Avert Rare-Earth Export Controls Ahead of Trump-Xi Summit
Justin time: Justin Herbert Shields Madison Beer with Impressive Reflex at Lakers Game
Russia’s President Putin Declares Burevestnik Nuclear Cruise Missile Ready for Deployment
Giuffre’s Memoir Alleges Maxwell Claimed Sexual Act with Clooney
House Republicans Move to Strip NYC Mayoral Front-Runner Zohran Mamdani of U.S. Citizenship
Record-High Spoiled Ballots Signal Voter Discontent in Ireland’s 2025 Presidential Election
Philippines’ Taal Volcano Erupts Overnight with 2.4 km Ash Plume
Albania’s Virtual AI 'Minister' Diella Set to 'Birth' Eighty-Three Digital Assistants for MPs
Tesla Unveils Vision for Optimus V3 as ‘Biggest Product of All Time’, Including Surgical Capabilities
Francis Ford Coppola Auctions Luxury Watches After Self-Financed Film Flop
Convicted Sex Offender Mistakenly Freed by UK Prison Service Arrested in London
United States and China Begin Constructive Trade Negotiations Ahead of Trump–Xi Summit
U.S. Treasury Sanctions Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro over Drug-Trafficking Allegations
Miss USA Crowns Nebraska’s Audrey Eckert Amid Leadership Overhaul
‘I Am Not Done’: Kamala Harris Signals Possible 2028 White House Run
NBA Faces Integrity Crisis After Mass Arrests in Gambling Scandal
Swift Heist at the Louvre Sees Eight French Crown Jewels Stolen in Under Seven Minutes
U.S. Halts Trade Talks with Canada After Ontario Ad Using Reagan Voice Triggers Diplomatic Fallout
Microsoft AI CEO: ‘We’re making an AI that you can trust your kids to use’ — but can Microsoft rebuild its own trust before fixing the industry’s?
×