GENEVA — IATA’s latest stats shows healthy global passenger demand with all regions reporting growth.

Total revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs) for July 2018 rose 6.2%, compared to the same month last year.

While this was down from 8.1% year-over-year growth in June, it nevertheless marked a solid start to the peak passenger demand season, said IATA.

Monthly capacity (available seat kilometers or ASKs) increased by 5.5% and load factor rose 0.6 percentage points to a record high for July of 85.2%.

“The industry posted another month of solid traffic growth. And the record load factor shows that airlines are becoming even more efficient in terms of deploying capacity to meet demand. However, rising costs – particularly fuel – will likely limit the stimulus we would expect from lower airfares. Therefore, we do expect to see a continued slowing of growth compared to 2017,” said IATA’s Director General and CEO Alexandre de Juniac.

North American airlines’ traffic climbed 4.1% compared to July 2017. This was down from 6% growth in June, but still ahead of the five-year average pace for carriers in the region as strong momentum in the U.S. economy is helping underpin a pick-up in international demand for airlines there.

Capacity for the month was up 2.8% with the result that load factor climbed 1.1 percentage points to 87.2%, second highest among the regions.