Airline industry predicts profit in 2023, defying slowdown headwinds

The airline industry will return to profit next year as pent-up demand for travel sustains bookings even as the global economy tightens, the International Air Transport Association trade group predicted.

Losses this year are likely to total $9.7 billion as air travel begins its recovery from the coronavirus crisis, IATA said Monday in an update at its annual meeting in Doha, an improvement on the $11.6 billion deficit predicted at the previous gathering last October.

“Industry-wide profit should be on the horizon in 2023,” IATA Director General Willie Walsh told the gathering of airline chiefs. “We are rebounding. By next year, most