IATA: Premium pax outgrows economy class in 2024

IATA reported (04-Aug-2025) the following highlights from its World Air Transport Statistics report for 2024:

• Premium travel:
  • International premium travel (business and first class) grew 11.8% year-on-year to 116.9 million passengers, outpacing growth of 11.5% in economy travel. Premium travellers made up 6% of total international passengers;
  • Asia Pacific led regional growth with a 22.8% increase to 21 million premium passengers and a 28.6% increase to 500.8 million economy class passengers. Growth in premium travel exceeded economy class in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and North America. Europe remained the largest market for international premium travel with 39.3 million passengers. The Middle East recorded the highest proportion of premium travellers at 14.7%;
• Top airport pairs:
  • Asia Pacific accounted for nine of the top 10 busiest airport pairs. Jeju-Seoul Gimpo was the busiest route with 13.2 million passengers. Jeddah-Riyadh was the only top 10 route outside Asia Pacific;
  • Bogota-Medellin was the busiest route in Latin America (3.8 million passengers), Cape Town-Johannesburg was the busiest in Africa (3.3 million), New York JFK-Los Angeles was the busiest in North America (2.2 million) and Barcelona-Palma de Mallorca was the busiest within Europe (two million);
• Most used aircraft:
  • Boeing 737 aircraft operated 10 million flights and 2.4 trillion ASKs;
  • A320 aircraft operated 7.9 million flights and 1.7 trillion ASKs, and the A321 operated 3.4 million flights and 1.1 trillion ASKs;
• Top passenger countries:
  • The US remained the world's largest aviation market with 876 million passengers (+5.2%);
  • China was the second largest market with 741 million passengers (+18.7%). [more - original PR]