European aviation: a new year, a new capacity recovery high. Profits to follow
Europe's capacity recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic has reached its highest level in the opening week of 2023.
In the week of 02-Jan-2023 the region's airline seat numbers are at 92.0% of the equivalent week in 2019, or a shortfall of 8.0%. This is similar to (but fractionally above) the level reached in the final week of 2022 and the strongest performance on this measure since before the pandemic.
However, Europe remains fifth in the regional ranking, above only Asia Pacific, where capacity is down by 16.1% versus 2019.
In spite of the region lagging most other regions in the capacity recovery, Europe's airlines are showing a stronger performance with respect to profitability.
According to IATA, Europe is estimated to have had the third best EBIT margin in 2022 and is forecast to join North America on a positive EBIT margin in 2023.
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