Cruising At 55 Million and Going No Where

Coronavirus Capacity Update Week Forty-Six: It’s been a very quiet week on the global capacity front although optimism continues to grow with more vaccine news and some airlines reporting up to 200% increases in booking activity week on week

They just didn’t mention what the base point was! An additional 100,000 seats week on week represents a positive move but at 55.2 million we are treading treacle at some 52% of the same capacity last year.

now trialling their own Covid-19 protocols and progress is being made on many fronts, but the reality remains of little change in capacity being likely before the first quarter of next year. Scheduled capacity for the first quarter stands at just over one billion seats compared to 1.2 billion for this year; a shortfall of just 18% which either suggests lots of confidence in a first quarter recovery or a lot of airlines still working out their plans. I suspect the latter for nearly every market in the world aside from China.