Europe’s aviation capacity close to 89% of 2019 levels

Europe’s capacity recovery as a percentage of 2019 levels has broken from its narrow 13-week range of 86%-87%, reaching almost 89%. This is the closest to 2019 levels in the COVID-19 pandemic era.

Europe’s total seat capacity is at 88.6% in the week commencing 22-Aug-2022, which is a shortfall of 11.4% against the equivalent week in 2019.

Europe remains fourth in the regional ranking, above Asia Pacific, where capacity is down 22.8% versus 2019, and the Middle East, where capacity is down 14.2%. Africa capacity is down 11.0%, North America 8.5%, and Latin America is down 2.3% (the best performance of any region since before the pandemic).

Not only has this week’s capacity recovery reached a new high for Europe, but projected capacity for 4Q2022 has increased, rising from 86% to 88% over the past two weeks (to week of 22-Aug-2022).

In addition, data from the CAPA Fleet Database show that Europe’s passenger jet fleet in service is almost back to pre-COVID levels, led by LCCs, and with legacy airlines not far behind.