North Atlantic airline capacity no longer lagging Europe's recovery

The North Atlantic is the most important intercontinental region for Europe's airlines and more important to European than to North American airlines. The coronavirus pandemic's disproportionate impact on long haul routes has therefore been particularly punishing to Europe's long haul operators.

However, IATA monthly traffic data show that the North Atlantic was Europe's strongest long haul traffic region by Nov-2021, measured by the percentage change in RPKs from the same month of 2019, but it was still weaker than intra-Europe.

Traffic data for more recent months are not yet available. Nevertheless, weekly capacity trends suggest that the North Atlantic is no longer consistently lagging total Europe's capacity recovery.