Global traffic as measured by revenue passenger-kilometres rose 31% year on year in June, to 94% of 2019 levels, evidencing a "strong start" to the summer season, according to IATA. The airline association observes ongoing momentum in the recovery from the pandemic, citing growth across all regions of the world. Domestic traffic was up 27%, and 5.1% above June 2019. The recovery in international markets reached 88%, a year-on-year increase of over a third. "The northern summer travel season got off to a strong start in June with double-digit demand growth and average load factors topping 84%. Planes are full which is good news for airlines, local economies, and travel and tourism dependent jobs. All benefit from the industry's ongoing recovery," states IATA director Willie Walsh. The association's data shows that the recovery in international markets has been fastest in Asia-Pacific over the past year, with RPKs more than doubling on 2022. Next is Africa, up 35%, and the Middle East, up 29%. "As strong as travel demand has been, arguably it could be even stronger. Demand is outrunning capacity growth," adds Walsh. "Well-documented problems in the aviation supply chain mean that many airlines have not taken delivery of all the new, more environmentally friendly aircraft they had expected, while numerous aircraft are parked awaiting critical spare parts. "And, for the fleet that is in service, some air navigation service providers (ANSPs) are failing to deliver the requisite capacity and resilience to meet travel demand."

Air Serbia has seen passenger numbers surge to 1.7 million through the first half of the year, an increase of 87% on last year and 59% on 2019. The gave it a roughly 50% market share it is Belgrade hub, rising to 55% in June, it states. The number of flights rose to over 19,000, a 63% increase on the same period of 2019. “The effect of good business operation is a record financial result,” it states. “According to preliminary financial reports, in the first half of the year, we achieved a profit of 22.4 million euro, which is at the level of the profit for the whole of 2022.” It repaid €20 million ($22 million) to the government of Serbia for funds received during a recapitalisation process that was launched in 2021. The company is majority-owned by the government of Serbia, with a minority stake held by Etihad, and operates a fleet of 29 aircraft. The company focusses on connecting the Balkans with Europe and select long haul routes via its Belgrade hub.

Commercial airline pilots can use artificial intelligence predictions to avoid making some contrails, an American Airlines study suggests. Contrails constitute a significant non-carbon impact on the climate from aviation. Persistent contrails, in particular, can trap heat in the atmosphere. Google Research and Breakthrough Energy, which funds technology designed to reduce carbon emissions, led the study for American. They aimed to determine if it is possible to identify atmospheric zones that are likely to create contrails, and if pilots can avoid making contrails in flight when supplied with such data. Satellite imagery, weather data and flight-path data were fed into artificial intelligence programmes to develop contrail forecast maps. Additionally, several American pilots flew 70 flights over the course of six months while using the AI-based predictions to make modifications to routes that were projected to create contrails. Based on these tests, Google Research found that flights where pilots used the AI predictions to avoid creating a contrail reduced contrail formation by 54%, as measured by distance, compared to flights where pilots did not use the AI predictions. "This first proof point – albeit on a small number of flights – shows that a commercial flight can verifiably avoid creating a contrail," American says. "Additional research is necessary to determine if this success can be replicated and scaled." In October 2022, Delta Air Lines and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's department of aeronautics and astronautics commenced jointly testing ways to prevent persistent contrails.