The world flies more safely than ever. The next billion passengers are still waiting to board.
IATA's 2025 Safety Report reveals a record-breaking year for aviation security — and a stark global divide in who actually gets to fly
The numbers are striking. In 2025, the global aviation industry operated 38.7 million commercial flights, carried more than 4.5 billion passengers, and recorded an accident rate of just 1.32 per million flights. At peak hours, more than 130,000 aircraft are airborne simultaneously. By any measure, flying has never been safer.
But safety data alone tells only half the story. The other half is about access — and the gap between the two is widening.
“The IATA report is a testament to what global collaboration and data-driven standards can achieve,” said Luiz Moura, co-founder and Chief Business Officer of VOLL, the largest corporate travel and expense management platform in Latin America, backed by Warburg Pincus in a $123 million deal (the largest funding round in Latin America’s corporate travel sector since 2015). “But when you look beyond the safety metrics and examine who is actually flying, a very different picture emerges. The infrastructure exists. The demand exists. What’s missing is access.”
US: the benchmark everyone measures against
With approximately 900 million passengers transported in 2024 and a penetration rate of roughly 2.7 flights per capita per year, the United States remains the world’s most mature aviation market. Its more than 500 commercial airports serve a population of 335 million, creating a density of access that no other market has replicated at scale.
Canada follows a similar pattern, with a penetration rate of approximately 2.1 flights per capita annually, supported by a well-developed network of regional and international airports connecting a geographically vast country.
Europe, taken as a whole, presents a comparable picture. The European Union’s 450 million residents generated approximately 1.1 billion passenger trips in 2024, translating to an average penetration rate of 2.4 flights per capita. Countries like the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Norway exceed 3 flights per capita annually — remarkable figures for nations with populations between 5 and 18 million.
China and Mexico: different trajectories, same direction
China, with 1.4 billion people and approximately 620 million passengers in 2024, registers a penetration rate of roughly 0.44 flights per capita. The rate is considerably low relative to its economic scale, but accelerating rapidly. The country has invested aggressively in airport infrastructure, adding more than 250 commercial facilities in recent decades, and projections suggest its aviation market will surpass the United States in absolute volume within the next ten years.
Mexico tells a different story. With half of Brazil’s population and a fraction of its airport infrastructure, Mexico recorded approximately 95 million passengers in 2024, yielding a penetration rate of 0.73. That is nearly 60% higher than Brazil’s, despite having fewer structural advantages.
Latin America: the safety gap and the access gap
The IATA report identifies Latin America and the Caribbean as one of the regions with the most room for improvement in safety performance. The region recorded an accident rate of 2.38 per million flights in 2025, compared to the global average of 1.32 and North America’s 0.83.
“Safety and access are not separate conversations,” said Moura. “In Latin America, both gaps reflect the same underlying challenge: the absence of consistent standards, investment, and institutional coordination at a regional level. Closing the safety gap and closing the access gap require the same ingredients: data, infrastructure, and long-term commitment.”
The Brazilian paradox: a view from the inside
Brazil offers perhaps the most striking illustration of the global access divide. And it is a paradox best understood from the inside.
The country has more than 2,400 airports, the second-largest network in the world after the US. Yet its air travel penetration rate sits at approximately 0.47 flights per capita per year — comparable to China, a country with six times Brazil’s population and an airport network that is decades younger.
Chile, with less than 10% of Brazil’s population and roughly 80 commercial airports, posts a penetration rate of approximately 1.15, more than double Brazil’s figure. Mexico outperforms Brazil despite having half the population. The Netherlands, with 18 million people and a territory smaller than West Virginia, moves more air passengers per capita than the entire Brazilian market.
“Brazil built world-class infrastructure. But a large share of the population has never set foot on a plane,” said Moura. “That is not a logistical failure. It is an economic and social one. And it represents one of the largest untapped growth opportunities in global aviation, not just for Brazil, but for any investor or operator paying attention to where the next hundred million travelers will come from.”
Safety as the foundation for growth
For Moura, the IATA safety data and the access data are inseparable arguments.
“One of the most persistent barriers to expanding air travel in emerging markets, besides affordability constraints, is fear. And fear is often rooted in misinformation,” he said. “The IATA report shows that the probability of being on a flight that ends in an accident is 0.00013%. That is essentially zero. Every time we communicate that clearly, we make the case for more people to fly. And more people flying means more economic activity, more connectivity, and more opportunity for companies, for governments, and for the travelers themselves.”
The 2025 IATA Annual Safety Report is available at iata.org.
About me
I am an entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience at the intersection of tourism and technology. I am co-founder and Chief Business Officer of VOLL, the largest mobile-first corporate travel and expense management platform in Latin America, and a recognized reference in the development of the corporate travel industry.
A Marketing specialist from Fundação Dom Cabral, I serve on the Tourism Council of FecomércioSP and on the Executive Council of the Latin American Association of Corporate Events and Travel Management (Alagev). A frequent traveler and close observer of human behavior in motion, I write and speak about innovation, digital transformation, entrepreneurial leadership, and the future of corporate travel.