In a statement, IATA said the IATA World Air Transport Statistics for 2020 revealed that 1.8 billion passengers flew in 2020, a decrease of 60.2 per cent compared with 4.5 billion in 2019.
"Total industry passenger revenues fell by 69 per cent to US$189 billion in 2020 and net losses were US$126.4 billion in total. IATA director general Willie Walsh said 66 per cent of the world’s commercial air transport fleet was grounded as governments closed borders or imposed strict quarantines at the depth of the crisis in April 2020.On 2020 airline performance, WATS figures showed that the Middle Eastern region suffered the largest proportion of loss for passenger traffic with a drop of 71.5 per cent in revenue passenger-kilometres versus that of 2019, followed by Europe and the African region which fell 69.