Middle East and Africa account for 14 of the world's 25 highest-risk departure cities as global fraud rates continue to climb
Accertify, a leading fraud decisioning provider whose Predictive Yes Platform helps merchants say yes to more good customers, more revenue, and more growth, today announced the release of its Global Air Travel Fraud Report: Q3 2026, a quarterly analysis examining how fraud pressure varies across global airline markets based on departure city at the time of booking.
Based on an analysis of more than 123 million airline booking transactions processed between July and September 2026, the report evaluates prevented fraud rates across 531 departure cities that each processed at least 10,000 transactions during the quarter, providing airlines with a data-driven view of where Accertify's Predictive Yes Platform intervened most frequently at booking.
The Q3 findings reveal that fraud pressure continues to intensify across the Middle East and Africa, which recorded the highest average prevented fraud rate of any region at 2.55%, up from 2.03% in Q2 and 1.38% a year earlier. The region now accounts for 14 of the world's 25 highest fraud-rate departure cities, up from 11 in Q2 and eight in Q1. Meanwhile, the global average fraud rate increased to 0.35%, from 0.29% in Q2.
The increase comes amid a broader decline in airline booking volumes. Across 527 departure cities with data in both periods, transaction volume fell 26.1% year over year, with Middle Eastern departure cities experiencing the steepest decline at 40.2%, likely due in part to ongoing conflicts in the Middle East. Despite this reduction in booking activity, fraud rates increased year over year in 10 of the 11 qualifying Middle Eastern cities.
Key findings from the Accertify Q3 2026 Global Air Travel Fraud Report include:
- Middle East and Africa continued to record the world's highest average fraud rates. The region's average prevented fraud rate reached 2.55%, up from 2.03% in Q2 and 1.38% a year earlier. Cairo ranked highest globally at 9.75%, followed by Tunis at 7.62% and Beirut at 7.35%. Cairo's rate has increased for three consecutive quarters, from 1.43% in Q1 to 6.57% in Q2 and 9.75% in Q3.
- Fraud pressure intensified across the Gulf and Levant. Seven cities in the region, including Beirut, Amman, Jeddah, Riyadh, Doha, Sharjah and Dammam, ranked among the world's 25 highest-rate departure cities, up from five in Q2 and one in Q1. Beirut returned to the global rankings with the third-highest fraud rate worldwide at 7.35%, more than 14 times its level a year earlier.
- South Asia experienced another significant increase in fraud rates. The region's average prevented fraud rate climbed to 1.66%, up from 1.17% in Q2 and 0.65% a year earlier, making it the second-highest region globally. Three Indian departure cities, Bangalore (2.45%), Cochin (2.27%) and Delhi (2.23%), ranked among the world's 25 highest-rate cities, compared with just one in Q2.
- Europe and East Asia saw notable increases in fraud pressure. Europe's average rate rose from 0.14% in Q2 to 0.22% in Q3, with popular Greek summer destinations including Heraklion, Zakynthos and Rhodes moving into the region's Top 10. East Asia's average more than doubled quarter over quarter, from 0.11% to 0.26%, reversing improvements reported in Q2.
- The United States and Australia and the Pacific maintained some of the world's lowest fraud rates. Both regions averaged 0.07%, well below the global average of 0.35%. Canada also remained relatively low at 0.17%, while Latin America and the Caribbean averaged 0.66%, down from 0.74% a year earlier.
The report underscores how booking-stage fraud pressure can vary significantly across global airline markets and shift rapidly from one quarter to the next. By examining prevented fraud at the departure-city level, airlines can better benchmark their own performance, identify areas of elevated risk and adapt fraud prevention strategies as booking patterns evolve.
Note on methodology:Fraud rate figures reflect prevented fraud, defined as bookings denied for a fraud reason before travel occurred, categorized by departure city. These figures represent prevention activity rather than confirmed fraud losses. Regional and global averages are calculated as the unweighted mean of each qualifying departure city's individual fraud rate.
The Global Air Travel Fraud Report: Q3 2026 is available on Accertify's website.
About Accertify
Accertify enables commerce by doing one thing extraordinarily well: pinpointing fraud. The company's Predictive Yes Platform helps businesses say yes to more more good customers, more revenue, and more growth without getting burned. It's a precise, confident, data-backed yes, made possible by joining signals across the entire customer lifecycle through unmatched data volume, layered AI-powered models, and a consortium approach that protects clients from bad actors spotted anywhere in the network while unlocking business with good actors verified anywhere in the network. With more than 10 billion transactions and over $1 trillion in commerce processed in 2025 alone, Accertify delivers the intelligence and precision that fraud and payments teams need to say yes confidently and enable growth. That's the More Yes difference. Learn more at accertify.com.
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