Air Passengers Carried Worldwide by Year, 2000-2023

About This Dataset

Total passengers carried by the world's air carriers each year from 2000 to 2023, in millions. The series covers scheduled and non-scheduled traffic and captures every downturn of the period, including the 2020 collapse and the three-year recovery that followed it.

✨ AI Insight

World air passengers grew from 1,674.1 million in 2000 to a peak of 4,455.7 million in 2019, then fell to 1,771.9 million in 2020, a drop of 60.2% that undid two decades of growth in a single year. Recovery took three years: 2021 added 508.1 million, 2022 added 950.3 million, and 2023 added 1,038.7 million, the largest one-year gain in the series. Even so, 2023's total of 4,269.0 million remained 4.2% below the 2019 peak. Only three other years declined at all, 2001, 2002 and 2008, and all three were shallow by comparison, the deepest being a fall of 27.8 million in 2002.

Source: World Bank / International Civil Aviation Organization

Key Findings

Auto-computed highlights from this dataset

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2019 leads with 4,456 in 2000-2023.

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Average value in 2000-2023: 2,736 · median: 2,475.

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Gap in 2000-2023: 2019 is 2.7× larger than 2002.