OAG has just released a global aviation report that we share below:
In the past four weeks, some fifty-eight million seats have been recalled each week as airlines seek to find a way through the COVID-19 crisis that is crippling the aviation industry.
One of the factors driving the slowdown in weekly capacity reductions is that many regional markets now appear to have reached a point where less than 15% of historical capacity is operating. Western Europe, the Southwest Pacific and Lower South America report that they have 90% less capacity than planned for the week of January 20. Looking for any positive results from current data is a challenge, but Northeast Asia regionally has a 1% increase in capacity week after week.
In recent weeks, attention has been focused in part on which markets will recover first and what patterns we can expect to see as the market finally recovers from COVID-19. It is actually too early to get a clear idea, but the current capacity pattern gives an indication of which segments have been strongest over the course of the event. As the table below clearly shows, national markets have fared much better than international sectors. Many factors influence this pattern, travel restrictions between countries, vast domestic markets and limited alternative modes of transport have contributed to «global» domestic capacity falling by 57% compared to international capacity by 88% since mid-January. Domestic capacity now represents 85% of all seats supplied compared to 61% at the start of COVID-19.
The aforementioned regional recovery in Northeast Asia is fueled by an increase in capacity in China with 600,000 additional domestic seats added this week on various airlines as reports of increased demand and seasonal holidays are expected in May. see a bigger recovery in this particular market. Capacity in the United States has decreased by 26% during the week, as all major airlines made further cuts in capacity.
As we have noted in each weekly update, the data reflects the data currently presented by airlines that are under tremendous pressure adjusting and working through schedule changes and advising OAG as quickly as possible. In this week’s data it would appear that there has been a notable increase in capacity in India; in fact, this is not the case and further updates are expected from some local airlines this week that will reflect similar capacity levels to those reported in last week’s update.
Combining OAG schedules and on-time performance data with information from the US TSA. USA It highlights the operational challenges of American airlines that have been canceling flights as it made its way through the complexity of adjusting schedules over the long term. Since March 1, the downward trend in both scheduled capacity and passengers going through TSA security processes indicates that many flights currently operate with load factors of less than 20%.
In line with the reported capacity growth in Chinese domestic capacity, the three major Chinese airlines; Southern china. China Eastern and Air China report weekly weekly increases. China Southern added 19% capacity in the week, but still operates less than half the capacity operated in mid-January, while China Eastern, with more modest 3% week-to-week growth, has 59% fewer seats than twelve weeks ago. .
On January 20, some 790 airlines planned to operate the scheduled services, this week some 590 plan to operate; exactly 200 fewer airlines or 25% less than just twelve weeks earlier. Non-operating companies include Ryanair, EasyJet, Air Asia, and Turkish Airlines, all of which would normally operate over a million seats per week at this time of year.
Looking ahead, we continue to receive regular updates from airlines around the world as they adjust the remainder of their operational programs, while others advise new dates for capacity to be restored. For many airlines, mid to late May appears to be the latest in terms of regaining some capacity, but the situation remains extremely fluid. During the night, Delta Air Lines through the OAG Alerts product seems to have presented almost 42,000 adjustments to its schedules since the rate of change seems relentless. Our expectation is that next week’s data will take us below the 30 million seat weekly mark, from that point on we expect to see capacity growth.