fallen 70% this year, the worst performance of any region with the exceptions of Africa (-72%) and the Middle East (-73%). RPK growth next year is expected to be a weak 47.5%, trailing the comparable regions of Asia Pacific (50%) and North America (60.5%).

‘Our projections for this year and next are little short of a disaster for European air transport,’ says Rafael Schvartzman, IATA’s regional vice president for Europe. ‘Border restrictions and quarantine measures have brought demand to a halt and the region has been affected even worse than most other parts of the world. There is optimism over a vaccine, but as our forecast for next year shows, this is unlikely to come in time to prevent hundreds of thousands more job losses in the industry unless governments take immediate action. The focus must remain on rapid testing of passengers so that quarantine can be eliminated, and borders safely opened.’