Europe's airline capacity goes into reverse

After four weeks of stagnation at approximately 45% of 2019 capacity levels, seat numbers in Europe slid back to 42% in the week commencing 31-Aug-2020.

The year-on-year cut of -57.8% in Europe's airline seat numbers was deeper than the -55.2% drop of the week of 24-Aug-2020. This was the second consecutive downward movement after 11 positive weeks, but while the previous week's slip was only fractional, the current capacity is down by 6.5% w-o-w.

Europe's cut is deeper than North America's -52.3% and Asia Pacific's -41.8%. Africa now has the deepest cut, at -66.9%, followed by Latin America at -64.7% and the Middle East at -62.5%. Europe is the only region with a clear downward step this week.

The volatility surrounding European nations' international travel restrictions is weighing on the recovery.

Wizz Air has followed Ryanair in announcing lower capacity than previously planned this autumn, but LCCs are generally still ahead of the competition. Aeroflot's LCC subsidiary has even managed year-on-year growth in passenger numbers for Jul-2020, demonstrating the importance of a large domestic market and low costs.