Airline labour strikes are rising with profits once more

Over the past decade, and more, the number of news articles on the CAPA website mentioning the word ‘strike’ has shown a broad correlation with the annual operating profit margin of the global airline industry.

The number of such articles plummeted in 2020 and 2021, but is starting to rise again in Jun-2022 and Jul-2022.

A pilots’ strike at SAS and labour disputes at other airlines and airports – all based in Europe – have driven this recent upturn.

The annual number of CAPA articles with the ‘s’ word in 2022 is set to exceed the number in both of the past two years 2020/2021– just as industry operating margins are also forecast to rise.

However, although both are increasing, they also have a long way to go to reach pre-COVID levels.