Airlines plan Europe summer 2016 seat capacity: growth accelerating due to LCCs and new models

Airline seat growth from Europe is set to accelerate to 8% this summer, up from 6% in summer 2015, according to the latest schedules data from OAG. This will be the highest summer growth rate in six years. With summer 2016 starting in less than three weeks, the data are now fairly solid (although, of course, they are always subject to further change).

Capacity to Africa will fall and Asia Pacific will experience slowing growth from Europe, but every other region will experience an acceleration this summer. Intra-European seats will grow by 8%, with growth led by LCCs (including the low cost subsidiaries of the big legacy groups).The Middle East will continue to have the highest rate of capacity growth from Europe, but there will also be double-digit growth to Latin America and to North America.

This acceleration of capacity growth on the North Atlantic is partly due to the emergence of new competition, but also seems to be the result of incumbents switching capacity from elsewhere. This should perhaps be a source of some concern to the immunised JVs.