Aviation in Europe: Reduced hours as darker clouds accumulate

After a brief pause in the week that began on 22 August 2022, the recovery of Europe’s capacity as a percentage of the 2019 grades returns to the diversity from 86% to 87% it occupied in the last thirteen weeks.

In addition, while this week saw a rare increase in seating capacity forecast for the rest of 2022, there has been a relief in that outlook of 2 percentage points or more this week (as of August 29, 2022).

Europe’s total seating capacity is 87. 1% this week, a deficit of 12. 9% compared to the week of 2019. Middle East, where capacity is down 14. 8%.

The capacity planned for Europe in 4Q2022 has been reduced from 88% to 86%, down from 87% forecast for 3Q2022. This comes as COVID-19, and even operational problems, may give way to the economy as the main fear related to air demand.

Summary

In the week starting August 29, 2022, total seating capacity in Europe is expected to be 32. 4 million, based on OAG schedules and CAPA seating configurations.

That’s down 12. 9% from 37. 2 million seats in the week of 2019, and down 1. 5 ppt from last week’s pandemic-era production high of -11. 4%.

This puts Europe back in the diversity between -12. 5% and -14. 4% that it occupied for 12 weeks from the end of May 2022 until the brief advance of last week.

This week’s total seating capacity for Europe is spread over 7. 9 million domestic seats, compared to 8. 3 million in the week of 2019; and 24. 5 million foreign places, compared to 28. 9 million.

European indoor seats are down 5. 1% since 2019, up from -2. 4% last week at the time of the pandemic.

International headquarters capacity has decreased by 15. 1% since 2019, compared to last week’s pandemic of -13. 9%.

Europe remains in fourth place in the ranking of regions measured across seats as of 2019 degrees this week.

With a fall of 12. 9%, Europe surpasses by 11. 0 points Asia-Pacific, sixth, where it falls by 23. 9%, and 1. 9 points above the Middle East, where the number of seats falls by 14. 8%.

Capacity fell by 11. 1% in Africa, 6. 9% in North America and 1. 8% in Latin America.

Once again, Latin America is now at 2019 degrees of capacity more than any region since before the COVID-19 pandemic.

North America and Latin America took an upward action on the trend this week, while Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific took a downward action. Africa is largely at the same point as last week.

According to data from OAG and CAPA, Europe’s capacity as a percentage of 2019 titles has increased every consecutive quarter of 2021. It is 27% in 1Q2021, 34% in 2Q2021, 64% in 3Q2021 and 71% in 4Q2021.

The improvement continues in 2022 so far.

Capacity for 1Q2022 74% of degrees 1Q2019 and capacity for 2Q2022 84% of degrees 2Q2019.

Projections for 3Q2022 are for 86. 7% of the number of seats in 3Q2019, up from 87. 5% last week (week of 22 August 2022) thanks to a 2. 5% relief in capacity forecast for September 2022.

This reverses last week’s unprecedented pandemic era of expanding the time of the existing quarter.

Looking ahead to 4Q2022, the projection narrowed to 86. 3% from 88. 2% in last week’s projection, reversing gains from the past two weeks.

Capacity projections for the remaining month of 2022 have been reduced from 2. 0 to 2. 5 ppts.

Only October 2022, at 89. 8%, remains above the 86% to 87% that European capacity has occupied since the end of May 2022 (excluding last week’s brief increase by 88. 6%).

This projected capacity relief for the remainder of 2022 only cancels out the brief increase, but is also of a significant magnitude.

Since the emergence of the severe peak era of the Omicron wave of COVID-19, the normal trend of capacity relief tended to be at rates of 1ppt or less from week to week.

The trend of the last quarters of the pandemic suggests that 3Q2022 will not replace much from now on, two months after the quarter.

However, capacity for 4Q2022 as a percentage of 2019 grades may fall further if the trend of previous systems continues a month before the start of the quarter.

The projection for 4Q2022 is now lower than the projection for 3Q2022 a month before the start of this quarter.

For the quarter from 3Q2020 to 1Q2022, capacity projections one month before the start of the quarter were higher than the final result of the quarter by double-digit percentage points.

This hole has been largely reduced every quarter and has fallen to 7 issues by 2Q2022. If 3Q2022 remains close to what has been projected lately, this hole will be about four percentage points.

If successive quarters continue to narrow the gap, 4Q2022 may be the closest to last month’s projection to date.

However, it can still fall through a small percentage point to the single digits of the existing projection of 86% to, say, 83%-85%.

Of course, in real life, capacity will not take those models into account, but will be decided through operational and convening factors.

CAPA has reported in the past that COVID-19 itself no longer has a significant effect on reduction demand. On the contrary, operational disruptions such as labour shortages and other supply chain constraints have hampered the recovery of capacity in Europe.

In addition, existing discounts on projections for the remainder of 2022 come as the economic outlook weakens.

In a European context, this darkening of the economic horizon is in a break from the knowledge of the Purchasing Managers’ Index.

The PMI S

The PMI compound S

However, this was the lowest figure of this era and exceeded 50. If the downward trend continues, the UK may soon fall into a contraction in business activity.

The influence of the COVID-19 call could only be reaffirmed if new variants of fear emerged and if operational disruptions continued to weigh on capacity recovery in Europe.

However, European aviation is poised to return to the pre-COVID era, as economic situations are likely to once again be the main drivers of air demand.