European aviation moves into the post-pandemic era

Europe's capacity recovery from COVID-19, expressed as a percentage of 2019 levels, has been tracking sideways for almost three months. Moreover, airline schedules filed with OAG currently indicate that the rest of 2022 is projected to remain at a similar level of around 87%.

However, the 4Q2022 schedule has grown modestly since last week (from 86% to 87%), which is the first time an increase has happened for a future quarter since before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Europe's total seat capacity is at 87.3% in the week commencing 15-Aug-2022, or a shortfall of 12.7% against the equivalent week in 2019. Europe remains fourth in the regional ranking, above Asia Pacific, where capacity is down by 21.3% versus 2019, and the Middle East, where capacity is down by 13.3%. North America capacity is down by 10.0%, Africa by 9.1%, and Latin America is down by 4.8%.

The main issue now keeping Europe from making the next upward step in the capacity recovery is the staff recruitment bottleneck and other supply chain constraints.

Concerns over COVID-19's direct impact on demand have faded: European aviation is now largely post-pandemic.