Air travel in 2026 is bigger than ever and less profitable than a year ago. Airlines expect a record load factor of 84%, yet IATA has cut its 2026 profit forecast almost in half since December.
Why this matters: fuel prices, the war in the Middle East and a shortage of new aircraft now shape what you pay for a ticket and how full your flight will be. These figures compare 2025 results with the latest 2026 forecasts so you can see what changed this year.
Key Takeaways
- IATA now expects airlines to earn $23 billion in 2026, down from $45 billion in 2025, a net margin of just 2.0%.
- Jet fuel is forecast to average $152 a barrel in 2026, up almost 70%, lifting fuel to 31.4% of airline costs.
- Airlines have 18,100 aircraft on order, more than half the size of the active fleet, so seats will stay tight.
Global Passenger Demand Month by Month in 2026
IATA measures demand in revenue passenger kilometres (RPK): one paying passenger flown one kilometre. The monthly figures show exactly when 2026 changed course.
Source: IATA, monthly air passenger market press releases, January to September 2026 (published 2 March to 30 October 2026).
The year started strongly, with growth of 6.1% in February. From March, the war in the Middle East cut deep into traffic: IATA reported a fall of nearly 61% in international demand for Middle East airlines that month, and global demand shrank from April to June. July brought a small return to growth, but August and September slipped back below 2025 levels. For context on longer-term volumes, see our airline passenger traffic statistics.
Which Regions Are Growing and Which Are Shrinking
IATA's June 2026 outlook expects global traffic to grow by just 2.1% this year. The regional picture varies far more than that average suggests.
Source: IATA, Global Outlook for Air Transport, press release No. 26, 7 June 2026.
The Middle East is the clear outlier. IATA expects its airlines to lose 11.4% of their traffic in 2026 after growing 6.8% in 2025. IATA links the fall to airspace limits and the loss of transfer passengers. Africa is forecast to grow fastest, at 10.0%, as travel paths shift. IATA says Europe's 2.8% growth is helped in part by long-haul traffic rerouted away from the Middle East. North America stays close to flat.
Airports tell the same story of size. ACI World counted an estimated 9.8 billion airport passengers in 2025, 3.6% more than in 2024 and 7.3% above 2019. Its forecast of 10.2 billion for 2026 was published in January, before the war began. IATA's June outlook puts airline passengers at 5.1 billion in 2026, up 2.4%, against the 5.2 billion it expected in December.
Airline Profits: How the 2026 Forecast Changed
In December 2025, IATA expected 2026 to be a record year for airline profits. Six months later, the outlook looked very different.
Source: IATA, industry outlook press releases of 9 December 2025 (No. 54) and 7 June 2026 (No. 26).
The forecast fell from $41 billion to $23 billion in six months, and the expected net margin dropped from 3.9% to 2.0%. That works out at $4.50 of profit per passenger, half the $9.10 airlines made on each passenger in 2025. IATA puts the industry's return on invested capital at 4.3% in 2026, well below the 8.5% cost of capital. Our commercial airline net profit statistics track how these margins compare with earlier years.
Airline Profits by Region
Every region is expected to earn less in 2026 than in 2025. The size of the fall depends mostly on how exposed each region is to the Middle East and to fuel costs.
Source: IATA, Global Outlook for Air Transport, press release No. 26, 7 June 2026.
Middle East airlines swing from a $7.2 billion profit to a forecast $4.3 billion loss, a net margin of minus 6.1%. Europe and North America remain the most profitable regions in cash terms, at about $9.5 billion each, but both lose around a quarter of their 2025 profit. African airlines are expected to make just $0.1 billion between them, about 40 cents per passenger.
Revenue Is Rising, but Costs Are Rising Faster
Airlines will take in more money in 2026 than ever before. The problem is on the cost side of the ledger.
Source: IATA, Global Outlook for Air Transport, press release No. 26, 7 June 2026.
Revenue is forecast to rise by 9.4% to $1.165 trillion, helped by higher fares and cargo yields. Costs are forecast to rise by 13% to $1.117 trillion, and almost all of the extra cost is fuel: the fuel bill grows by about $98 billion while non-fuel costs grow by about $30 billion. The 2025 cost figures here are derived from IATA's published revenue and operating profit. Ticket revenue alone reaches $839 billion, and IATA puts the average real return airfare at $462.
Jet Fuel: The Biggest Change of 2026
Fuel is the single number that explains most of the profit downgrade. Compare what IATA expected in December with what it expects now.
Source: IATA, industry outlook press releases of 9 December 2025 (No. 54) and 7 June 2026 (No. 26).
In December, IATA expected jet fuel to get slightly cheaper in 2026. It now forecasts an average of $152 a barrel, up almost 70% on 2025, with fuel making up 31.4% of airline operating costs against 25.4% a year earlier. Airlines burn about 104 billion gallons a year in both years, so the whole increase comes from price. EUROCONTROL data show European jet fuel averaged $4.84 a gallon in October 2026, 114% above its January to February level. Our airline fuel consumption statistics show how much fuel each type of flight uses.
Aircraft Deliveries and the Record Backlog
Airlines want more aircraft than manufacturers can build. Deliveries show how far production has recovered.
Source: Airbus and Boeing annual delivery announcements (January 2020, January 2024, January 2025, 12 and 13 January 2026); Airbus, January to October 2026 deliveries (6 November 2026); Forecast International, October 2026 orders and deliveries, 10 November 2026.
Airbus delivered 621 aircraft in the first ten months of 2026, 6.2% more than a year earlier, and needs about 249 more in November and December to reach its target of around 870. Boeing delivered 524, already close to its full-year 2025 total of 600 and far above its 2024 low of 348. Even so, the backlog keeps growing: IATA counted 18,100 aircraft on order in May 2026, up from 17,000 in 2024, and IATA's December outlook said the average fleet age had passed 15 years, the highest ever. At the end of October, Airbus had 9,430 aircraft on order and Boeing 6,972. More background on fleets is in our aircraft fleet size statistics.
Flight Punctuality in Europe
EUROCONTROL tracks how many flights across its network arrive within 15 minutes of schedule. The annual figures show the direction of travel before 2026.
Source: EUROCONTROL, European Aviation Overview annual reviews for 2023, 2024 and 2025 (2025 Review published 23 January 2026).
Europe handled 11.1 million flights in 2025, back at its 2019 level, and 76.1% arrived on time, up from 72.5% in 2024 but still short of 2019. Air traffic flow restrictions added an average of 2.4 minutes of delay per flight. The improvement has held into late 2026: in the week of 19 to 25 October 2026, arrival punctuality was 73.5%, 1.5 points better than the same week of 2025, with network traffic 0.7% higher. Air traffic control capacity and staffing caused 65% of en-route delays that week.
Delays and Cancellations Over the Last 12 Months
Annual averages hide the months when things go wrong. AirAdvisor's flight database shows how often flights ran very late or were cancelled in each month from November 2025 to October 2026.
Source: AirAdvisor's flight database, all flights in AirAdvisor's flight database worldwide, 1 November 2025 to 31 October 2026.
Across the year, about 5.3% of flights worldwide arrived an hour or more late. The worst months were July (7.2%) and August (7.0%), with a winter spike in January (6.2%), and April was the calmest at 3.2%. Cancellations peaked in March at 5.2%, when long-haul flights of over 3,500 km made up 29% of all cancellations, the same month IATA recorded a 61% fall in international traffic for Middle East airlines.
For a closer look at where and why flights run late, see our global flight disruption statistics.
Sustainable Aviation Fuel: Growing, but Still Below 1%
Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is aviation's main tool for cutting carbon emissions. IATA estimates it could deliver about 65% of the reductions needed to reach net zero by 2050.
Source: IATA, Fact Sheet: Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF), June 2026; IATA press release No. 25, 6 June 2026.
SAF output has roughly doubled each year since 2022, reaching an estimated 1.9 million tonnes in 2025. IATA expects growth to slow in 2026, to about 2.4 million tonnes, or 0.8% of all jet fuel used. That SAF will cost airlines an extra $4.3 billion. The EU's ReFuelEU rules required a 2% SAF blend from 2025, and IATA says the EU and UK mandates have not sped up production. For the basics of how the industry works, see our airline industry insights.
References and Sources
- IATA, "Middle East Disruptions, High Fuel Prices Halve Airline Industry Profitability", press release No. 26, 7 June 2026: iata.org
- IATA, industry outlook press release No. 54 (2026 forecast of $41 billion net profit), 9 December 2025: iata.org
- IATA, "Global Air Travel Demand to Slow to 2.1% in 2026", Chart of the Week, 12 June 2026: iata.org
- IATA, monthly passenger market press releases for January (2 March 2026), February (31 March 2026), March (29 April 2026), April (28 May 2026), May (30 June 2026), June (30 July 2026), July (31 August 2026), August (30 September 2026) and September 2026 (30 October 2026): iata.org
- IATA, "SAF Production Volumes Still Disappointing", press release No. 25, 6 June 2026: iata.org
- IATA, Fact Sheet: Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF), June 2026: iata.org
- ACI World, "World's Busiest Airports Revealed in Latest Global Rankings", 14 April 2026: aci.aero
- ACI World, World Airport Traffic Forecasts 2025 to 2054 announcement, 28 January 2026: aci.aero
- Boeing, "Boeing Announces Third Quarter Deliveries", 13 October 2026: boeing.mediaroom.com
- Airbus, Orders and deliveries: airbus.com
- Forecast International, "Airbus and Boeing Report October 2026 Commercial Aircraft Orders and Deliveries", 10 November 2026: forecastinternational.com
- Forecast International, "Airbus and Boeing Report December 2025 Commercial Aircraft Orders and Deliveries", 15 January 2026: forecastinternational.com
- EUROCONTROL, European Aviation Overview: 2025 Review, 23 January 2026: eurocontrol.int
- EUROCONTROL, European Aviation Overview, week 19 to 25 October 2026, published 29 October 2026: eurocontrol.int
- EUROCONTROL, European Aviation Overview: 2024 Review (23 January 2025) and 2023 Review (18 January 2024): eurocontrol.int
- AirAdvisor's flight database, monthly network report, 1 November 2025 to 31 October 2026, accessed 13 November 2026.
Methodology
This page compares 2025 results with forecasts for 2026. Financial and traffic forecasts come from IATA's two most recent industry outlooks: 9 December 2025 and 7 June 2026. Figures for 2025 are IATA estimates as published in June 2026, which revised some 2025 values from the December release (for example, 2025 net profit from $39.5 billion to $45 billion). Regional profit and growth figures refer to airlines registered in each region. Monthly demand growth is shown as first published by IATA each month; IATA sometimes revises earlier months slightly. The 2025 cost split in the revenue and costs chart is derived: total costs equal IATA's 2025 revenue of $1.065 trillion minus its 2025 operating profit of $76.4 billion, split into IATA's published fuel bill ($252 billion) and non-fuel costs ($737 billion).
Airport passenger totals are ACI World's preliminary estimates for 2025 and its January 2026 forecast for 2026. Aircraft deliveries are company figures for commercial aircraft; Boeing's October 2026 figure is as reported by Forecast International. European punctuality is EUROCONTROL's network arrival punctuality (share of flights arriving within 15 minutes of schedule). The monthly delay and cancellation chart uses AirAdvisor's flight database, which merges schedule and status data from OAG and other providers, and covers all flights in AirAdvisor's flight database worldwide. A flight counts as delayed when it reached the gate 60 or more minutes after its scheduled arrival time. The database stores one record per flight number, so codeshare flights appear more than once; we therefore publish percentages only. Percentages are rounded to one decimal place and money figures are in US dollars.
