Source: IATA The International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced that the ongoing recovery in passenger demand continued in October. Total traffic in October 2023 (measured in revenue passenger kilometers or RPKs) rose 31.2% compared to October 2022. Globally, traffic is now at 98.2% of pre-COVID levels. Domestic traffic for October rose 33.7% versus October 2022, driven by the triple-digit percentage growth recorded in China, and was 4.8% above the October 2019 results. International traffic climbed 29.7% compared to the same month a year ago. All markets saw double-digit percentage gains year on year. International RPKs reached 94.4% of October 2019 levels. “October’s strong result brings the industry ever closer to completing the post-pandemic traffic recovery. Domestic markets remain above pre-COVID [...]

Source: IATA The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released data for October 2023 global air cargo markets indicating the third consecutive month of stronger year-on-year demand. Global demand, measured in cargo tonne-kilometres (CTKs*), increased by 3.8% compared to October 2022. For international operations, the demand lagged slightly at 3.5%. Capacity, measured in available cargo tonne-kilometres (ACTKs), was up 13.1% compared to October 2022 (11.1% for international operations). This was largely related to the growth in belly capacity. International belly capacity, for example, rose 30.5% year-on-year on the strength of passenger markets. Several factors in the operating environment should be noted: Economic activities slowed in October. With the Purchasing Managers’ Index for manufacturing output and export orders for major economies (excluding [...]

Source: FAA The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is proposing to extend the cockpit voice-recording requirement to 25 hours for all newly manufactured aircraft. The voice recorder captures all transmissions and sounds in the cockpit, including the pilots’ voices and engine noises. “This rule will give us substantially more data to identify the causes of incidents and help prevent them in the future,” said FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker. The FAA pledged to take action on the issue following the Safety Summit in March 2023 during which more than 200 safety leaders met to discuss ways to enhance flight safety. This rule would align with regulations set by the International Civil Aviation Organization and European Union Aviation Safety Agency. Current FAA regulations require voice recorders [...]

Source: IATA The International Air Transport Association (IATA) and Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC) have extended their Direct Data Solutions (DDS) partnership, which offers subscribing airlines the most comprehensive global set of airline sales, market and itinerary data. Signed at the 2023 IATA World Passenger Symposium, the partnership extension ensures more than 100 global airlines will continue to have access to this critical service for years to come. DDS incorporates airline-contributed data, IATA's Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP) transactions and ARC's Area Settlement Plan (ASP) transactions into a single data source to support critical airline analytics and decisions. Jointly created in 2012 by IATA and ARC, DDS is the world’s largest and most comprehensive global airline ticket dataset. It includes more than 15 billion passenger [...]