Europe-Asia Pacific is Europe's hardest-hit airline market

Asia Pacific is the second most important intercontinental region for European airlines, accounting for almost 15% of their total ASKs in 2019. For those operating on Asia Pacific routes, the region was a fifth of their ASKs. This gives a reasonable indication of the revenue importance to European airlines of Asia Pacific, second only to the North Atlantic among long haul markets.

COVID-19 has depressed all long haul demand even more than short haul. This is particularly bad news for European airlines, as they have a greater percentage of ASKs on long haul than North American and Asia Pacific airlines. Within long haul, Europe-Asia Pacific has been even harder hit than the North Atlantic.

Not surprisingly, the big legacy airlines had the most pre-crisis capacity to Asia Pacific among European operators. Among non-Russian operators, Finnair had the highest exposure as a percentage of its ASKs, while Air France-KLM and Lufthansa Group had a bigger exposure than IAG.