Brazil‘s third-largest airline, Azul announced on Thursday that passenger traffic on its flights in September was 120.1% higher than a year earlier. Compared to September 2019, when the country had not yet been hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a 10.6% drop.

Slowly, the airline industry is recovering from the pandemic, but it will still take years to make up for losses. Demand for international travel is expected to double next year and reach 44% of 2019 levels. However, the vaccination rate, as well as the lifting of border restrictions imposed by the government, will determine the pace of recovery.

Considering only domestic flights, demand for seats on Azul flights last month grew 125.6% over a year earlier. Over September 2019, there was an increase of 8.7%.

On international flights, demand in September was 53.6% higher but fell 78.5% against the same month in 2019.

The total occupancy rate of aircraft on Azul flights in September was 79.4%, down 0.8 percentage point compared to a year earlier and 3.9 points compared to September 2019.

(Translated by LABS)