European aviation: recovery remains consistent but passenger load factors continue to slide

Europe's seat capacity recovery as a percentage of 2019 levels remains in the narrow range of 86%-87% that it has occupied almost every week since late May-2022.

Seat numbers in Europe are at 87.5% in the week commencing 10-Oct-2022, which represents a shortfall of 12.5% against the equivalent week in 2019. This is the second successive weekly improvement in this measure, but not quite enough to break through the range of the past few months.

Europe remains fifth in the regional ranking, above Asia Pacific, where capacity is down by 22.9% versus 2019, but below the Middle East, where capacity is down by 10.8%. North America capacity is down by 7.5%, Africa by 6.2%, and Latin America is down by 3.2%.

During the period of flatlining in Europe's capacity recovery, the improving load factor trend has started to reverse. According to IATA data, the gap to 2019 load factors widened in Jul-2022 and Aug-2022.

Data for leading LCCs point to this trend continuing for the European airline sector in Sep-2022.