European aviation: staffing adds to the list of challenges

Europe's aviation capacity recovery has absorbed the Omicron wave and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but now risks stalling on recruitment obstacles.

Reduced COVID-19 restrictions and seasonally higher demand since the start of the summer schedule have led to a +66% increase in weekly seats since late Jan-2022.

However, expressed as a percentage of 2019 levels, the recovery has lost momentum in recent weeks.

Europe's seat capacity shortfall of -18.4% versus 2019 levels is its third best week on this measure since before the COVID-19 pandemic, but is fractionally down from last week's figure.

Europe has slipped from fourth to fifth in the regional ranking, above only Asia Pacific, where capacity is down by -31.3%. Middle East capacity is down by -15.1%, while Africa capacity is down by -14.5%, North America by -11.4%, and Latin America by -6.8%.