Air transport is picking up.

In 2022, it regained 80.6% of its 2019 passengers, before the health crisis, with “continuous and more sustained momentum” in the second half.

According to annual statistics from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGAC) available Friday on its website, 144.81 million air trips took place in 2022 in France, including overseas, whether departing or at the arrival.

These figures reflect an acceleration of the recovery: in 2020, the Covid-19 had divided by four the number of air passengers over one year.

And, in 2021, the sector had found only one in two travelers compared to the pre-crisis.

In addition, the smoothed average over one year hides a constant progression since the reflux of the Omicron variant which marked the beginning of 2022. In December, traffic thus rose to 93.9% of the same month of 2019, according to the DGAC which noted a "continuous and more sustained momentum from May".

Domestic traffic, including overseas territories, represented 28.7 million passengers in 2022 - or 84.1% of 2019 levels - while international connections - at 116.1 million passengers - reached 79.8% of 2019.

Africa and Overseas take off in December

In the month of December alone, two groups of connections exceeded their attendance for the same period of 2019: between mainland France and Africa (113.5%) and between mainland France and overseas territories (104.6 %).

Over the year as a whole, these ratios were 88.8% and 98.7% respectively.

Other frequencies that have seen an above-average recovery include those to the European Union (85.2% of 2019), the Americas (81.5%) and Turkey (106.1%).

On the other hand, unsurprisingly, flights from or to the Asia-Pacific zone only found 54% of their pre-crisis travelers, weighed down by China (5.5%) and, to a lesser extent, the Japan (30.7%).

These two countries have long closed their borders to fight the pandemic.

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