Global airlines carried 4.4 bn passengers in 2018, record increase of 7%: IATA

Airlines across the world carried 4.4 billion passengers on scheduled services, an increase of 6.9 per cent over 2017, representing an additional 284 million trips by air, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which released performance figures for 2018 in the IATA World Air Transport Statistics (2019 WATS).  Alexandre de Juniac, Director General and CEO, IATA, stated, “The world’s airlines safely carried around 4.3 billion passengers last year, on some 126,000 daily flights connecting over 21,000 city pairs.”