Full second-quarter 2025 data for Airline Business’s benchmark global carriers shows the industry’s aggregate profitability improving significantly from the same period in 2024, as lower fuel costs boosted fortunes in many cases.
The data puts the industry on track to improve its profitability for the full year of 2025, as per IATA’s projections earlier this year, albeit there is a tricky second half of the year to navigate first, with some early indications that yields might not be as healthy as hoped for during the period amid risks that are weighted towards the downside.
The second half of 2024 will also provide some tougher comparison data, after the first six months of that year saw disappointing financial outcomes for a number of operators, only for things to turn around across the second six months.
All told, the 38 benchmark airlines increased their aggregate operating profit by just short of $900 million for the April-June 2025 period to $14.6 billion and boosted their net profit year on year by around $4 billion to $11 billion. That follows a first quarter in which profits also improved year on year. The second-quarter earnings were also significantly up on those seen in the last per-Covid year, 2019.
The higher profits were achieved on revenue some 5.6% bigger at $157 billion (an uptick on the 2.6% growth seen in the first quarter), with a 5.2% increase in passenger traffic being broadly in line with a 5.3% increase in capacity, keeping the aggregate load factor at an historically high 83.7%.
Of the four global regions tracked at an aggregate level, North America was the only one to see its aggregate profitability fall, amid a continued dichotomy of performance between the network carriers and low-cost rivals. North American carriers also saw revenue trend largely flat year on year, in a development that could become more significant if it continues and costs keep rising.
European airlines made the biggest contribution to overall profitability, followed by North American, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. Asia-Pacific’s biggest players in China continue to struggle to turn strong capacity and traffic growth into profits, weighing on that region’s performance.
The biggest positive forces in the period were generally strong passenger demand, some improvement in aircraft deliveries and availability, the aforementioned lower fuel costs, some better currency trends, yields holding steady despite capacity increases, and a weaker-than-feared impact from the trade policies and rhetoric from the administration of president Donald Trump in the USA (although weakness in economy-class cabins was noted by a number of domestic carriers and those serving transatlantic routes, making it a trend to watch, while demand on Canada-USA and Mexico-USA routes has been hit).
Weighing on airline performances were geopolitical factors – including those leading to airspace challenges in the Middle East and around Ukraine – higher non-fuel costs, a questionable economic outlook, and a continued lack of capacity, despite some encouraging developments in that regard.
The cargo market continued to see resilience in the face of a challenging trade backdrop, with cargo revenue among the benchmark carriers rising by 5.8% year on year.
By region, European carrier profitability was significantly higher year on year, as comparisons benefitted from the surprisingly challenging conditions seen in the same period of 2024.
All told, the 10 airlines/groups included in the aggregate data boosted their combined operating profits by around $1.8 billion year on year, while the net profit was almost $2 billion higher.
The broad theme among the region’s biggest operators during earnings calls this year was that passenger demand held up reasonably well in the April-June period, with profits helped by lower fuel costs in particular, even as costs elsewhere in the business weighed on earnings. At the same time, supply-chain challenges continue to limit capacity across the region, helping to keep yields high.
And notably, many European operators in the key transatlantic market managed to offset any economy-class softness with strong sales in premium cabins.
North American airlines posted lower operating and net profits compared with the equivalent period of 2024.
The region’s aggregate operating revenue for the April-June period totalled about $65.3 billion, roughly flat with last year’s total revenue for the second quarter.
Notably, the period saw transborder tensions between Canada and the USA rise significantly amid the Trump administration’s trade war, hitting demand and capacity on routes between the two, while most major US carriers reported sagging demand for economy-class seats on domestic routes amid some consumer reticence.
Those factors likely depressed overall results during the seasonally strong period, though some US carriers continued mopping up profits.
Meanwhile, Asia-Pacific carriers saw an uptick in profitability for the second quarter of 2025, on the back of improvements in operating revenue and passenger traffic.
Aggregate data for the 11 airlines and groups included in the benchmark metrics reveals an operating profit of close to $2.9 billion – a 23% increase compared to the same quarter a year ago. Net profit too was also on the upswing, more than doubling year on year to $1.54 billion.
Initial fears of a severe impact from the US government’s tariff policies eased during the quarter, with airlines noting that passenger travel demand remained – and continues to remain – strong. Still, the degree of optimism and caution varied from operator to operator.
And in Latin America there was year-on-year improvement across all key performance indicators, with the exception of flat aggregate passenger load factor compared with the April-June period of 2024.
Currency issues weighed heavily on the region’s airlines earlier in the year, particularly on carriers in Brazil, where devaluation of the Brazilian real has been a consistent headwind in recent quarters. But those issues eased considerably as the US dollar weakened in the second quarter.
Tensions over US-instigated global trade wars also eased somewhat throughout the region, though traffic from the Mexico to the USA remained suppressed during the second quarter.
The aggregate second-quarter results of publicly traded Latin American airlines show a profitable region with operating revenue, operating profit, net profit, revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) and available seat kilometres (ASKs) all trending favourably over last year.
While some Middle Eastern carriers are included in the global performance indicators, there are not enough airlines that report quarterly data in that region, or in Africa, to produce region-specific dashboards or analyses.