More people are flying in more expensive cabins for leisure trips despite airfares rising on surging oil prices and demand, and that’s helped offset a slower recovery in business travel, according to the International Air Transport Association.
“There’s a strong pent-up demand for travel,” IATA Director General Willie Walsh told reporters in Singapore on Monday. “Consumers had disposable income during the two years of the pandemic. People have saved and therefore they are prepared to spend that money.”
A quick recovery is crucial for global aviation, one of the industries hardest hit by the pandemic as governments shut borders and the skies emptied. While travel has started picking up in most markets, some countries, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, have yet to fully open up.
