The eighth consecutive week of capacity growth takes us to 63.2 million seats a week, the highest point for over a year and further hope of a slow but steady recovery in capacity in many markets around the world. As we have seen throughout the last year no two markets are at the same stage in their Covid-19 event and for all the positivity in this week’s numbers a few markets continue to show reductions in capacity. All of which highlights the “stop, start” nature of the market; perhaps some traffic lights might help in the recovery!
Despite the modest week on week capacity growth of 1.1 million seats (+1.8%) airlines appear to remain cautious around capacity with some 18.5 million seats removed from the systems over the last week for the second quarter of the year. However, that caution turns into confidence by August with an additional 14 million seats added back suggesting a holiday stampede of demand and perhaps full flights returning: oh, happy days!
Chart 1 –…