This week’s Flight Friday looks back at passenger flights (cycles) during 2023.

As the pandemic moves further behind us, passenger flights are returning to 2019 levels.

Domestic passenger travel has been above 2019 equivalent levels for most of 2023, with only November being lower than 2019 levels. Domestic traffic rebounded quickly after the outbreak of COVID, as travelling domestically was, in some cases, the only way to fly, as countries around the globe either kept their borders closed or made travel very difficult. During 2021, China’s sawtooth utilization, due to local and regional lockdowns, impacted the global domestic numbers, due to the sheer size of the Chinese domestic market. However, after China abolished their “zero-COVID” policy in December 2022, domestic travel from January 2023 raced to higher than 2019 levels.

International travel has taken a lot longer to recover and has yet to be greater than equivalent 2019 levels, although the gap is closing. International traffic is currently a little over 90% of 2019 levels, and as we move into the new year that gap will continue to shrink. By the Northern Hemisphere summer timetable, international travel should be at, or above, 2019 levels..

When combined for an overall look, the overall utilization was at or above 2019 levels from August to October 2023. With strong domestic demand and an increasing international travel demand, the overall figure for 2024 should remain above equivalent 2019 levels for almost all of 2024. . 

This data was put together using Aviation Week’s Tracked Aircraft Utilization tool.