Europe aviation: travel disruption erodes demand as capacity plateaus

The flatlining of Europe's capacity recovery is no surprise in the light of shortages in the aviation supply chain - especially labour supply.

However, a recent decline in airline bookings in Europe is a sign that demand is starting to be eroded by travel disruption concerns.

Europe's capacity recovery as a percentage of 2019 levels has now been on a plateau for 10 weeks, barely moving since the last week of May-2022. The region's seat capacity is at 86.7% in the week commencing 25-Jul-2022, which is a shortfall of -13.3% against the equivalent week in 2019.

Europe remains fifth in the regional ranking, above only Asia Pacific, where capacity is down -23.1% versus 2019. In the Middle East capacity is down -13.0%, while North America capacity is down -9.9%, Africa -9.2%, and Latin America is down -5.1%.