As we are nearing the end 2024, Asia Pacific’s airline industry continues to face hurdles on its path to fully recovering international capacity. While capacity is nearing 2019 levels, growth has slowed due to ongoing challenges. This report, based on insights from Adrian Schofield at the CAPA Airline Leader Summit in Hong Kong, explores Asia Pacific’s recovery trends, with a focus on Thailand, China, Japan, Hong Kong, and India, and covers factors like aircraft orders, LCC growth, and upcoming challenges for 2025.

While international air travel has rebounded worldwide, the Asia Pacific region’s recovery rate lags at 94% of 2019 levels, compared to over 100% in regions like Europe and North America. This slower recovery is largely due to delayed border reopening’s, which put Asia Pacific’s rebound on a later timeline.

Since 2022, Asia Pacific has seen steady growth in travel demand, but recovery rates have plateaued in 2024, hovering in the high 80s to low 90s. Year-on-year, international seat availability has increased by 16%, though it only grew 4% in early 2024.

Notably, all top domestic city pairs and six of the top ten international routes are within Asia Pacific, reflecting strong regional demand. However, Thailand, where tourism drives 20% of jobs, still sees visitor numbers 13% below 2019 levels. China, previously Thailand’s largest tourism market, shows a modest 55% recovery in visitor numbers, underscoring Asia Pacific’s gradual but ongoing return to pre-pandemic travel norms.

The recovery gap persists due to slow international demand in key markets like China and Japan, supply chain issues delaying new aircraft deliveries, and macroeconomic and geopolitical challenges impacting demand in some areas.