Europe's airline capacity recovery. Intra-Europe international is key

The very modest European airline capacity recovery is continuing, albeit still at very low levels.

According to schedules from OAG combined with CAPA Fleet Database seat configurations, in the week commencing 15-Jun-2020 seat numbers in Europe are down by 81.6% year-on-year, which is 2.0ppts narrower than last week's 84.7% drop.

Europe again has the second deepest year-on-year capacity cut, after Latin America's 82.7% decline. Seats have dropped by 76.6% in Africa, 71.7% in North America, 71.0% in Middle East and 49.5% in Asia Pacific.

This describes the current picture; more important for European aviation is the outlook. Schedules filed by airlines for the rest of the summer are regularly being trimmed, but still overstate the likely reality, a problem that has prompted CAPA to develop its own capacity forecast models.

A disadvantage for Europe compared with Asia Pacific and North America in the initial domestic-led recovery phase is the small scale of its domestic markets. For this reason, it is vital for Europe to coordinate and facilitate access to intra-Europe international markets, which make up half of the continent's seats.