Qatar among top Mideast performers in Origin-Destination passenger traffic growth in Q2: IATA

Origin-Destination (O-D) passenger traffic growth in Qatar was second best in the Middle East in the second quarter of the year, reveals a study by International Air Transport Association.
In the second quarter (Q2) of the year, Qatar recorded an O-D growth of 5.1% (compared to same period in 2019), which was second only to the UAE in the entire Middle East region, IATA noted.
The UAE led with an impressive 17.2% growth in O-D passenger traffic, compared to the same period in 2019, it said.
Passenger traffic growth generally varied among the countries in the region, with the strongest performances seen in the UAE, Qatar, and Jordan.
While Iran’s O-D passenger traffic remained 34.4% below pre-Covid levels, other countries also exhibited subdued growth in the second quarter compared to the previous period.
This, IATA noted, was primarily due to the timing of Ramadan in 2023 compared to 2019.
The passenger traffic recovery has been strong for Middle East carriers with 31.4% year-on-year (YoY) in the second quarter of 2023. The region’s airlines saw their revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs) reach within 0.9% of their Q2, 2019 levels.
The Middle East outperformed the global recovery in RPKs, which reached 93.7% (within 6.3%) of pre-covid levels for the quarter. Since most of the passenger traffic for the Middle East is international, total RPKs followed similar growth trends and recovery rates as international RPKs.
Ticket sales for the region have outperformed the global average and continue to trend upward, indicating sustained passenger demand, IATA said.
Local holiday shifts in the region caused some fluctuations but the overall trend remains positive, it said.
Although the annual growth in available seat kilometers (ASKs) was outpaced by the growth in RPKs, capacity still increased by 24.6% compared to the same period last year.
As a result of the slower capacity growth, the passenger load factor for the region increased by 4.1 percentage points compared to the same period last year.
Cargo activity: Cargo activity for Middle East airlines decreased in the second quarter of 2023 by 3.1% compared to the same period last year. This was still an improvement relative to the 8.1% YoY drop in the first quarter of 2023.
Compared to 2019, second quarter cargo activity was flat. Middle East carriers have demonstrated better cargo activity in the second quarter compared to the global activity, which was 5% and 4.8% below 2022 and 2019 levels, respectively.
Aircraft deliveries: Aircraft deliveries in the Middle East have maintained an upward trend since the lows of 2020, IATA pointed out.
Deliveries for 2023, including 42 planes that are scheduled to be received by the end of the year, are set to increase by nearly 50% over 2022 numbers.
With 90 aircraft in total for 2023, Middle East aircraft deliveries are set to recover to their 2019 levels.
This region has also seen a shift in deliveries from predominantly widebody jets in 2019 to narrowbodies since 2020.
The scheduled deliveries for 2023 indicate growth in both types of jet aircraft, with narrowbodies still accounting for most of the deliveries in the region, IATA noted.