European airline capacity continues slow climb as UK partially reopens

The UK has made its first, small, steps to reopening non-essential international services from 17-May-2021. Its green list of countries accounted for only 4.9% of total UK capacity in 2019, and includes countries where there is no reciprocal reopening (e.g. Australia) and where geopolitical risks have rapidly reduced demand (e.g. Israel).

Nevertheless, capacity between the UK and Portugal, the most significant green list market, will multiply by more than 19 times in the space of a fortnight. Total UK seat capacity is 1.8 times higher week-on-week in the week of 17-May-2021, but it is still 83.2% below 2019 levels.

Capacity in Europe overall is 66.6% below capacity in 2019. This rate of decline has now narrowed for four straight weeks, but Europe is still far behind other regions.

The next weakest is Middle East, where capacity is down by 49.8% versus 2019, while Africa is down by 46.6%, Latin America by 40.8%, Asia Pacific by 35.1%, and North America by 31.8%.