The global air travel industry has well recovered from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the total air passenger traffic in April rebounded to over 90 percent of the same period in 2019, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said on Monday.

The data was released at the 79th IATA Annual General Meeting held in Istanbul, Türkiye, which showed the global airline industry is expected to generate 803 billion U.S. dollars in total revenue in 2023, up 9.7 percent from the previous year. That included net income of 9.8 billion U.S. dollars, making 2023 the first profitable year since 2019.

Willie Walsh, director general of the IATA, said at the meeting that the association strengthened its outlook for the global airline industry in 2023 and predicted an increased profitability in the industry.

"A nice outlook, and it's nice to be able to talk about the industry back in profitability, given the horrible times we've gone through over the past few years. It's a net margin of 1.2 percent. And this is very very small.We talk about an average of 2.25 dollars per passenger carriage," said Walsh.

IATA also expected some 4.35 billion passengers to travel in 2023, close to the 4.54 billion in 2019. The passenger and cargo flight revenues are predicted to reach 546 billion and 142.3 billion U.S. dollars respectively.

The released data also pointed to a fast recovery of the industry in the Asia-Pacific region, with the performance of China's aviation market bearing high expectations.

"We are very confident in the Chinese market whether it's in the short, medium or long term," said Xie Xingquan, vice president of IATA's North Asia branch.