Global air passenger demand fell 0.8% in August 2026 as Middle Eastern carriers saw demand drop 14.6%, while African airlines grew 4.4%, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said on 30 September.
Excluding Middle Eastern carriers, demand rose 0.6% from August 2025, which IATA said is half the pace recorded in July. Airlines flew 0.3% more capacity than a year earlier, so the global load factor, the share of seats filled, slipped 0.9 percentage points to 85.1%.
The Middle East accounts for the drop. Its carriers cut capacity by 9.3%, but demand fell faster, and their load factor fell 4.9 points to 78.9%. IATA said the decline worsened in August, reversing the gradual stabilisation seen since the Iran war in February. Traffic on Middle East-Asia routes fell 11.7% year on year, against an 8.6% fall in July.
African carriers grew, but capacity outran demand. Total demand rose 4.4% and capacity 7.2%, leaving the load factor at 77.5%, down 2.1 points. That is the lowest of any region IATA tracks. On international routes alone, African demand rose 6.7% and capacity 8.3%, and the load factor was 78.4%, down 1.2 points. Africa holds 2.2% of global passenger traffic. The same imbalance showed in freight: IATA’s air cargo data for August put African capacity up 14.0% against 3.0% demand growth.
Other regions moved in different directions. Latin America and the Caribbean grew 5.3% in total, Asia-Pacific 1.4% and Europe 0.7%, while North America fell 2.2%. Domestic demand slipped 0.5%. India fell 7.5%, the United States 2.9% and Japan 2.0%, while China rose 5.8% on summer travel. On international routes, Europe-Asia traffic grew 12.2%, and transatlantic traffic fell 2.4%.
Marie Owens Thomsen, IATA’s Senior Vice President Sustainability and Chief Economist, said global connectivity was generally weaker in August, with domestic China a notable exception. She said the coming months will show whether travellers, whose purchasing power has been cut by higher energy prices, are trimming travel budgets or being put off by geopolitical instability.
The pressure on airlines predates August. In June, IATA halved its 2026 net profit margin forecast for the industry to 2.0%, from a previous 3.9%, citing Middle East disruption and fuel costs. For now, forward schedules for October show 2.0% growth in available seats.
