Air Travel Statistics 2026

Global airports carried a record 9.8 billion passengers in 2025, Airports Council International (ACI) World reported today, while air cargo volumes also reached an all-time high.

Total full-year demand in 2025 (measured in revenue passenger kilometers or RPKs) rose 5.3% compared to 2024.

International full-year demand in 2025 increased 7.1% compared to 2024, and capacity rose 6.8%.

International travel drove the growth, with passenger traffic up 6.1%, comfortably outpacing domestic growth of 1.7%.

Global passenger traffic reached approximately 4.7 billion in the first half of 2026, up just 0.6% on the same period last year, a marked slowdown from 2025’s pace.

In 2024, 1.1 billion people in the EU travelled by air.

This resulted in Europe’s airports welcoming an additional 100 million passengers and setting a new absolute record of 2.6 billion passengers.

The growth was entirely driven by international passenger traffic which expanded by +5.6% , whereas domestic passenger traffic remained flat at +0.2% .

Passenger traffic across the European airport network increased by +2.6% in H1 compared with the same period last year.

Passenger traffic across the European airport network increased by +3.9% and +3.1% respectively in July and August , versus the same months last year.

Total passenger traffic market shares by region of carriers for 2025 in terms of RPK are: Asia-Pacific 34.5%, Europe 26.6%, North America 21.8%, Middle East 9.5%, Latin America 5.4%, and Africa 2.2%.

The United States remained the world’s biggest passenger market, with 890.1 million passengers (both arriving and departing) recorded in 2025.

China was the second-biggest passenger market, with 776.1 million passengers in 2025, a growth of 4.8% compared to 2024.

Africa led the way with a 9.0% rise in traffic, followed by the Middle East (6.5%), Asia-Pacific (5.1%), and Latin America and the Caribbean (4.5%).

The Middle East saw the sharpest decline, with traffic down 21%, as the region bore the impact of the escalating crisis and airspace disruption.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) retained the No. 1 position with 106.3 million passengers in 2025, despite a year-on-year decline of 1.6%.

The world’s 20 busiest airports handled 1.59 billion passengers, representing 16% of all air travellers globally.

The four biggest US airlines alone - American , Delta , Southwest , and United - hold 562 million seats between them, representing 76% of all US capacity.

Dubai International Airport (DXB, 95.2 million passengers, +3.1%) and Tokyo Haneda International Airport (HND, 91.7 million passengers, +6.7%) held second and third place respectively, with both continuing to close the gap on Atlanta.

Passenger numbers for the year surpassed 84 million for the first time ever, and we achieved our busiest December on record, with almost 7.2 million passengers travelling through the UK’s hub.

London Heathrow remained the busiest European airport, welcoming a record 40 million passengers – a +0.2% increase over the H1 2025.

While many European airports broke their passenger traffic records, 41% of them finished the year still below their pre-pandemic (2019) levels as traffic performance variations remained a reality.

Highlights include: Airlines are expected to achieve a combined total net profit of $23.0 billion in 2026, which is roughly half the previously projected $41 billion.

Total industry revenues are expected to reach $1.165 trillion in 2026 (up 9.4% on the $1.065 trillion in 2025).

Costs Fuel costs are expected to rise by nearly 40% from $252 billion in 2025 to $350 billion in 2026.

H1 highlights include: Traffic grew 6% to 125.8m.

For the full year, we expect to generate a pre-tax profit of roughly $4.5 billion, absorbing a $6 billion increase in fuel costs.

Against this backdrop, we delivered September quarter pre-tax profit of $1.5 billion, matching last year's performance, and generated $1.9 billion of free cash flow year-to-date.

U.S. system passengers grew in 2025 to 6 percent above 2019 levels with domestic levels 5 percent higher and international 16 percent higher .

Compared to 2024, however, system passengers declined by 0.4 percent, led by a similar decline in domestic markets while international passengers grew by less than 1 percent.

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint throughput was also essentially flat, edging up to 2.40 million average daily passengers in 2025 compared to 2.39 million in 2024.

Reporting passenger carriers posted a combined operating profit of $12.3 billion—a 9 percent increase over FY2024, yet still significantly trailing the average profit of $22.1 billion over the five years ending in FY2019.

This represents about a 3.3% jump over the same four-day period in 2024.

US airlines have scheduled 741 million departing seats across the summer period.

The top 10 carriers account for 683 million of those - that's 92% of total US capacity

As a result, the system-wide load factor fell 0.9 percentage points to 82.4 percent.

Arrival punctuality 72.6%, better than last year by 1.2 percentage points.

A total of 680,987 flights were delayed by ATFM restrictions, an average of 7,402. flights a day and 21% of all flights

ATFM delays 3.27 minutes per flight: • 17% lower than 2025.

Travel disruption and complaint handling Experience of travel disruption has declined slightly this year from 58% of passengers in 2024 reporting experiencing a travel problem to 55% in 2025.

Overall satisfaction Overall satisfaction with the air travel experience is at an all time high with 88% saying they are satisfied with their experience.

Over half of passengers (58%) report having experienced biometrics at some point in their airport journey in the past 12 months, up from 50% in 2025.

There were 51 accidents in 2025 among 38.7 million flights.

Today, it is one fatal accident for every 5.6 million flights (2021-2025).

The additional cost of airline purchases of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) is expected to reach $4.3 billion in 2026 for an anticipated volume of 2.4 million tonnes of SAF being available (0.8% of total fuel consumption).

Over the next 20 years, Airbus anticipates a global demand for 42,060 new aircraft .

To accommodate projected traffic growth and replace retiring aircraft, the world's passenger fleet is expected to nearly double, growing from 23,310 aircraft at the end of 2025 to 45,550 aircraft by the end of 2045 .

Globally, operators are forecasted to need nearly 44,000 new airplanes to support sustained air travel demand and air cargo expansion over the next 20 years.

Long-term demand remains strong with global passenger traffic projected to double by 2045 and reach 18.8 billion (3.4% CAGR).

Key data: In Europe, 2025 closed 4% above 2024 , reaching 100% of 2019 traffic levels with an average of 30,263 daily flights , returning to pre-pandemic volumes at 11.05 million flights.

Over 2026-2032, ECAC flight growth is expected to average +2.1% annually (±1.9 pp) , unchanged from the Spring forecast, reaching approximately 12.8 million flights by 2032 .

Passenger traffic at Europe’s airports is set to continue expanding this year, with growth expected to further normalise at around +3.3%.