Mideast airlines see 0.4% dip amid Iran, Gaza wars, as global demand up 2.6%

Middle Eastern airlines recorded the sharpest decline globally in air travel demand in June, with a 0.4% year-on-year contraction, according to new data that also marked sharp drops in European and American traffic due to the wars engulfing the region over the last 12 months.

What happened: Data from the Geneva-based International Air Transport Association released Thursday showed that last month, the global average in revenue passenger kilometers, a metric for flight demand, was up 2.6% compared to June 2024, though the Middle East’s fell.

However, capacity for Middle Eastern airlines increased 1.1% year-on-year, IATA said. Load factor — a measure of how full planes were — was 78.7%, down 1.2 percentage points from June 2024.

The conflict in the Middle East, including in Gaza and the 12-day Israel-Iran war, significantly impacted traffic on routes to North America (-7.0% year-on-year) and Europe (-4.4% year-on-year), IATA said.

“In June, demand for air travel grew by 2.6%. That’s a slower pace than we have seen in previous months and reflects disruptions around military conflict in the Middle East. With demand growth lagging the 3.4% capacity expansion, load factors dipped 0.6 percentage points from their all-time record-high levels,” Willie Walsh, IATA’s director general, said in a statement.

Why it matters: Scores of airlines suspended flights to and from Israel and the wider region when fighting broke out between the Jewish state and Iran in June. During the fighting, Israel, Iran and surrounding countries including Jordan and Qatar closed their airspaces for a time before reopening them. Although most airlines have resumed flights to the region, some European and American carriers still have suspensions in place, with some not flying back to Israel or Iran until August and even the end of September.

Although the US and Qatar brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Iran on June 24 that has largely held, analysts and travelers alike remain concerned the conflict could flare up again.

Israel began launching missiles at Iran on June 13, hitting key nuclear sites and killing top nuclear scientists and government officials. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the time the attacks were to stop Tehran from acquiring an atomic bomb.  Iran responded with its own strikes on Israel. The US intervened on June 19, striking three nuclear targets in Iran. Tehran responded by launching missiles at a US air base in Qatar on June 23.