COVID-19 and European airlines: zero capacity becomes a reality

Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary has summarised the priority for his airline, which applies equally to all airlines currently: to preserve cash.

"If we have to operate for three, six, nine, maybe even 12 months, with no flights and no revenues how do we survive?", he said (Financial Times/Reuters, 21-Mar-2020).

The main tool at airlines' disposal for preserving cash is to make drastic cuts to capacity.

Total seat capacity in Europe has dropped by 59.1% year-on-year for the week commencing 23-Mar-2020, according to the latest schedules data from OAG combined with CAPA Fleet Database seat configurations. Domestic capacity has almost halved, reduced by 48.3%, and international capacity has been slashed by 62.9%.

Italy has the biggest percentage cut - reduced by 87.5% year-on-year - while Finland, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Greece and Belgium are also shrinking capacity by more than 70%. Of Europe's top 20 airline groups, 18 are showing cuts, and most of them very substantial.

However, data for some still do not appear to reflect full details of some recent announcements. The rate of reduction is certain to increase. At some point, zero capacity could even become a reality for European aviation.