Airline industry predicts profit in 2023, defying slowdown headwinds

The airline industry will return to profit next year as pent-up demand for travel sustains bookings even as the global economy tightens, the International Air Transport Association trade group predicted.

Losses this year are likely to total $9.7 billion as air travel begins its recovery from the coronavirus crisis, IATA said Monday in an update at its annual meeting in Doha, an improvement on the $11.6 billion deficit predicted at the previous gathering last October.

“Industry-wide profit should be on the horizon in 2023,” IATA Director General Willie Walsh told the gathering of airline chiefs. “We are rebounding. By next year, most markets should see traffic reach or exceed pre-pandemic levels.”