GENEVA: December 12, 2018. IATA expects the value of international trade shipped by air next year will be US$7 trillion, although airline CFOs and heads of Cargo are “significantly less positive about future growth in air travel, and less positive about cargo” because of increasing worries about economic prospects.

Airlines, their employees and customers are forecast to generate US$136 billion in tax revenues next year in the form of payroll, social security, corporate and product taxes from an employee base expected to rise 2.2 percent to over 2.9 million worldwide.

IATA expects its 290 members to generate a return of US$5 billion, or 8.6 percent, on invested capital of over US$700 billion next year, after producing record profits of US$35.5 billion and taking delivery of 1,780 aircraft worth US$80 billion this year.

With a fleet total of nearly 31,000 aircraft, the airlines’ fuel bill will rise to US$200 billion, or 24.2 percent of average operating costs next year.

IATA concludes that operating more fuel-efficient aircraft “have partially decoupled CO2 emissions from expanding air transport services” this year without which “fuel burn and CO2 emissions would be 1.5 percent higher in 2019”. The association claims this represents a saving of over 16 million tonnes of CO2 and an additional fuel bill of US$3.7 billion.

North America airlines are expected to produce net profits of US$16.6 billion next year – or US$16.77 per passenger (pp); European airlines will generate US$7.4 billion or US$6.40 pp; profits for Asia Pacific airlines are forecast at US$10.4 billion or US$6.15 pp; while Middle East carriers will produce post-tax profits of US$0.8 billion or US$3.33 pp next year, and airlines in Latin America a total of US$0.7 billion – up from US$0.4 billion this year.

Pictured: Boeing has delivered Royal Air Maroc’s first B787-9. The airline plans to deploy it between Casablanca, Paris (Orly), New York and Sao Paulo.