Research Publications

We're excited to announce that the third edition of the CAPA-Envest Global Airline Sustainability Benchmarking & Rating Report is now available.

In Oct-2021, CAPA – Centre for Aviation (CAPA), in partnership with Envest Global, published its initial Airline Sustainability Benchmarking Report, that report being the first step in providing insights into the status of airline decarbonisation and designed to assist decision-making by a broad range of stakeholders.

This, the third edition of the CAPA-Envest Global Airline Sustainability Benchmarking & Rating Report, continues these key themes. It provides detailed analysis into a “post-COVID-19” operating environment for the aviation sector and, importantly, insights into the aviation industry's pathway to Net Zero.

Benefits of the Report:

• Provides a transparent, data-driven assessment of airline sustainability.
• Establishes an independent, standardised rating system based on emissions for airlines.
• Allows airlines to compare and contrast their sustainability results with industry counterparts.
• Assists corporate travel buyers in identifying the most carbon-efficient airlines.
• Supports Travel Management Companies (TMCs) in understanding airline emissions and helping clients achieve internal targets.
• Informs investors and financiers about the relative sustainability ratings of airlines.
• Fosters a competitive market where environmental responsibility is key.
• Allows investors to understand airlines' green efforts, aligning with the industry's shift towards net-zero operations.

BONUS appendix – coming soon! Data summaries for over 80 airlines will be shared via email shortly.

Inclusions:

• Rating Framework
• Disclosure
• Total CO2 Emissions
• Emission Intensity
• SAF Use
• Offsets Purchased
• Factors Affecting Emission Intensity
• Financial Indicators of Sustainability Risk or Resilience
• Airline Sustainability Rating

CAPA Members, CAPA Summit attendees and CTC Corporate Buyer Members receive exclusive discounts, Contact us or reach out to your dedicated CAPA Account Manager for your code. 

The world’s biggest aviation markets are clearly awakening from their COVID-19 slumber – China’s borders have reopened and India is particularly in the spotlight following the large new aircraft orders at the Paris Air Show.

However, behind this strong performance and declarations of numerous airlines that demand remains quite strong, one glaring question remains – when will this thirst for travel born from the pandemic be quenched?

The past few years have not been kind to large airports in Asia Pacific.

With regional lockdowns, a morass of COVID-19 travel requirements and stubbornly closed international borders, the recovery in the region has trailed behind the rest of the world.

However, as lockdowns have ended and borders reopened passenger traffic in the region has started to return to more ‘normal’ volumes. In 1H2023 there has been the situation of airports enjoying a steep rebound in traffic, with travellers eager to return to destinations that have been cut off to them in the past few years, or to explore new destinations.

Traffic at North America’s 10 largest airports came roaring back in 2022. With the domestic market returning to near normality and international travel building through the year, an additional 191 million passengers passed through the main hubs during the year.

In total, the airports handled a combined 627 million passengers, which was an increase of 30.5% year-on-year. Total throughput was down just 6.7% on 2019 levels, with domestic traffic down only 3.3%. International traffic was down 24%, although the relative recovery accelerated from early 2Q2022.

Three of the top 10 North American airports have already exceeded pre-pandemic passenger levels, and all bar a few of the largest US hubs anticipate full traffic recovery during 2023. Those airports not expecting a full recovery in 2023 have significant exposure to slower recovering intercontinental traffic, particularly the Asia Pacific region. Even in the Asia Pacific, most travel markets are predicted to be back at full strength by early 2024.

Previous CAPA – Centre for Aviation special reports have identified the impact that Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF) and Pension Funds have made on the airport sector by way of their investments. There are other alternative financing techniques, and private equity is one of them.

This report examines who the main actors in private equity are.

They include some firms that have a disproportionate influence into the psychology of boardroom behaviour in some of the world’s leading companies. Also, some which are likely to be at the very forefront of the rebuilding of Ukraine, including its air transport system.

More mundanely, although a high number of the leading private equity firms have demonstrated an interest in the airport sector at times – including some notably off-the-wall instances where there was no obvious rationale for that interest – they have, by and large, been more reluctant to invest than have SWFs and Pension Funds.

As the aviation industry emerges from three years of pandemic-induced turmoil and hiatus, the aircraft interiors sector has once again become lively, with major developments taking shape across seat manufacturing, inflight connectivity (IFC), and inflight entertainment (IFE).

With the CAPA Aircraft Interiors Database, this report will analyse recent industry trends with data, visualising areas that have shown tremendous growth while providing clarity on how leading suppliers in each sector have shrunk and grown.

In this report, we will explore the following:

Seat manufacturing
• Largest suppliers
• Collins’ Dominance among the US Big Three
• Beyond the US: Expansion of Recaro and Geven
• Spotlight China: Rise of ‘Made in China’ AVIC seats
• The Pursuit of the Lightweight Seat
• The Ever-narrowing Seat Pitch
• Increased Focus on Premium seats
• Latest New Cabin Trend: Business Plus

Inflight connectivity (IFC)
• LEO Connectivity
• Globalisation of Connected Regional Jets

Inflight entertainment (IFE)
• Embedded IFE
• Narrowbody IFE: The Return of Seatback Screens?
• Wireless IFE

To get a snapshot of the data and insights shown in this report, download the shortened complimentary very below.

Intended Audiences: The audiences that will benefit from the CAPA Explains series include –

• Airlines;
• Travel technology companies, such as GDS, NDC providers and new aggregators, online booking tool providers in corporate travel (OBTs);
• Travel intermediaries – agents, OTAs, TMCs, wholesalers and tour operators;
• Other travel category vendors;
• Corporate customers – travel managers, buyers, procurement and ESG stakeholders;
• Travellers.

Benefits of Purchasing

• Gain access and knowledge to all areas of change affecting each topic/edition:
• Consolidate your learning in one place, at your fingertips and without the need for self-directed research;
• Save time and therefore money in researching important topics;
• Gain insights that help you develop your strategy to benefit, or mitigate negative implications of the changes occurring in the travel distribution ecosystem;
• Utilise CAPA’s extensive research, industry knowledge and externally sourced expertise related to the ever-changing travel distribution ecosystem;
• Understand the changes in travel distribution in a simple, single, clear, and concise manner.

Introducing Edition 1 - Money Flows in the Aviation Industry (and the implications of change on all constituents in the ecosystem)

• Explaining the dynamics of aviation money flows:
• How have they worked in the past?
• What has been changing?
• When, the amounts and the impacts in the ecosystem.
• What has happened in the last weeks and months?
• Why have money flows changed?
• Who is implicated and by what scale in the ecosystem?
• Airlines (principals), GDS & travel technology vendors, intermediaries (agents / TMC’s etc), online booking tool providers in corporate travel (OBTs), customers and travellers
• What might happen next?
• Winners & losers in the changes.

This is a must read first edition which represents a single source to understand the money flows and how historic, recent and future changes are impacting EVERY part of the ecosystem.

After a slow start to 2022, traffic at European airports bounced back strongly through the year thanks to a strong northern summer travel period.

At European airports, total passenger throughput nearly doubled in 2022. This occurred despite the nearly unprecedented operational issues experienced through the peak summer travel months (and again at the start of the northern winter period), along with near record oil prices, a war in Eastern Europe, and an uncertain economic outlook denting consumer confidence.

We're so excited to announce that the second edition of the CAPA-Envest Airline Sustainability Benchmarking Report is here.

The report is the industry's first single source of truth on emissions, benchmarking airlines and their performance as they transition the net zero operations. Now in its second year, this report is sure to capture the attention of the entire aviation and corporate travel industries.

This report, jointly prepared by CAPA - Centre for Aviation (CAPA) and Envest Global (Envest) is a further step in providing a clearer understanding of the status of emissions in the airline industry. Importantly, it provides an independently evaluated “airline sustainability rating” system, based upon a range of key emissions metrics and utilising a range of publicly available data points.

It also highlights the numerous challenges presented in the post-COVID-19 recovery and seeks to provide a clear and consistent set of fact-based metrics to assist stakeholders in their industry engagement and decision-making. Given the lack of standards – even within the airline alliances and airline groups – the new CAPA-Envest report is designed with the clearly stated objective of establishing an independent and objective (non-political) index that can serve as the potential future foundation for industry-wide policy-making.

As well, the report provides corporate travel buyers and the Travel Management Companies (TMCs) servicing these customers with a credible and data driven framework capable of helping with the design and implementation of sustainable travel policies and the subsequent allocation of budget (i.e. the buying of airline tickets) towards airlines that are performing better overall in the new index.

INCLUSIONS:

• RATING FRAMEWORK
• DISCLOSURE
• TOTAL CO2 EMISSIONS
• EMISSION INTENSITY
• SAF USE
• OFFSETS PURCHASED
• NET CO2 EMISSIONS
• FACTORS AFFECTING EMISSION INTENSITY
• AIRLINE SUSTAINABILITY RATING

CAPA Members and CTC Corporate Buyer Members receive exclusive discounts, Contact us or reach out to your dedicated CAPA Account Manager.