'Busiest Christmas ever': airlines prepare for record passenger traffic

The global aviation industry is preparing for the busiest Christmas season in history: more than 300 million people are expected to fly around the world during the holiday period, the Financial Times (FT) writes, citing data from aviation analytics platform OAG. The growth in demand for air travel confirms the recovery of the segment after the Covid-19 pandemic.

OAG forecasts that the number of passengers departing from the 40 countries with the highest passenger traffic will reach 309 million between December 15 and January 4. This is about 4% more than in the same period a year earlier, the FT notes. The main contribution to the statistics is expected to come from increased demand for air travel from passengers from China, India, Brazil and Mexico.

"Given the large number of passengers and potentially poor weather that winter can bring, <...> the aviation industry will be operating at full capacity at this time of year," said Selina Chadha, head of the UK Civil Aviation Authority's consumer and markets team.

The updated statistics reflect the recovery of the air travel segment after a severe downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the FT notes. According to the forecast of industry association Iata, the number of air passengers will exceed 5.2 billion in 2026, despite geopolitical and economic risks. Also, global aviation industry profits are projected to grow from $39.5 billion in 2025 to $41 billion next year, according to Iata. The association's CEO Willie Walsh called this "extremely positive news, given the challenges [now] facing the industry." Among them are "rising costs due to supply chain disruptions in aerospace, geopolitical conflicts, sluggish global trade and growing regulatory burdens.

"Airlines have been able to build resilience to external shocks into their business models, which allows them to maintain stable profitability," emphasized Walsh.

According to the OAG, some 9.6 million people will travel from the UK between December 15 and January 4. This makes the country the largest airline market in Europe, ahead of Spain, Italy and Germany. Flights to the US are expected to take 70 million people over the three weeks.

The busiest airlines this Christmas season will be US carriers American Airlines, Delta, United Airlines and Southwest, each of which will carry more than 13 million people over three weeks. They are followed by Europe's Ryanair, which will serve about 11 million passengers, according to OAG data.

The most active airports in terms of traffic will be Dubai (100% of flights are international) and Atlanta, where more than 90% of passengers will fly to domestic destinations.

The most popular individual route is expected to be the route between Jeju and Seoul in South Korea, with passenger traffic about a third higher than a year earlier. The second busiest route will be the route between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam: the number of passengers on it increased by 29% to 760 thousand people, the FT notes.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor