Cirium’s Airline Insights Report predicts 2022 will see a strong 47% growth in the number of airline seats on sale. Recovery will be led by the US and China, with Chinese domestic flights expected to be 6% up on pre-pandemic levels of 2019.

Domestic flying accounted for the overwhelming number of flights in 2021. Of all flights tracked by Cirium from January to October worldwide, 78% were domestic. International flights experienced a slow recovery, growing 6% in 2021 compared to the same period in 2020. 

Cirium estimates global air capacity in total will be 70% of 2019s by the close of 2021. The UK is still lagging behind, as it did not figure in Cirium’s top 20 routes or busiest airports in 2021.

Cirium predicts international passenger traffic is likely to reach two-thirds of 2019 levels and worldwide domestic traffic, measured in passenger numbers, will return to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2022. 

Its projections show the global passenger fleet will increase to 20,700 by the end of 2022 – only a few hundred less than at the end of 2019 pre-pandemic.

It said: “The pandemic wiped out 15 years of passenger capacity growth. Traffic was hit even harder and fell back to 1999 levels. 

“In 2021, we’ve seen the start of the recovery, and our latest outlook is more optimistic compared to what we predicted in 2020. 

“For 2022, capacity is projected to grow at 47%, recovering to around 2015 levels. However, our long-term forecast is that the world will still have lost some three to four years of growth - as far into the future as 2038.”

Transatlantic travel “probably won’t return to 2019 levels until sometime in 2023”, Cirium predicted.