According to the consulting firm OAGwhich analyses and publishes the timetables of all the world's airlines, this early June shows, for the first time in three months, an increase in the number of airlines operating on a worldwide basis. a genuine increase in supply. This trend confirms the predictions of aviation experts, who predicted the start of growth at this time of year.
OAG notes that this week has resulted in 16% of additional capacity around the world with the return of airlines such as Aeroflot, Turkish Airlines, Saudi Arabian, SAS Scandinavian Airlines and LOT.
While Turkish Airlines has resumed a large number of its international routes - for example, it is once again flying up to five times a day between Paris and Istanbul - others still offer very limited networks. LOT, for example, is limited to domestic routes, and SAS Scandinavian Airlines concentrates mainly on its intra-Scandinavian routes, apart from a few flights to Amsterdam, Newark and Chicago from Copenhagen. Aeroflot, on the other hand, serves only seven international routes - including a weekly flight to Paris - with very strict restrictions on passengers according to nationality.
With the gradual reopening of borders within the European Union, airlines such as Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Eurowings and Iberia will be returning to Europe in the near future. According to OAG, this week there were 36.7 million seats available worldwide, an increase of 5.5 million seats on the previous week. This compares with just 26 million seats around 12 May and over 110 million seats in the same period of 2019. For Western Europe, supply had bottomed out on 27 April with 1.1 million seats. This week, supply again reached 2.5 million seats, up 40.7% on the previous week.
La France follows this trend. OAG reports that for the week of 1 June, airlines were offering 176,000 seats in France, in increase of 40% compared with the previous week. Traffic capacity, however, remains 90% lower than in the first week of June 2019... Growth in seat capacity was supported by the markets at the end of the year. Middle East (+127%), in Central America (+124.5%) and in Southeast Asia (+43.5%). The Middle East is particularly benefiting from the rise of Qatar Airways (+512% more seats week-on-week) and the reopening of airspace in Saudi Arabia. South-East Asia saw the resumption of domestic routes in the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Authorisation to receive transit passengers at Singapore should also contribute to the resumption of traffic at Changi in the coming weeks, especially as its main competing hub in Bangkok remains closed to international traffic until 1 July.
In North America, US carriers are starting to add capacity again as containment measures are relaxed. According to OAG, Delta Airlines is offering 19% more seats this week than last, Southwest Airlines 17% and American Airlines 15.4%. The slow return of air transport to more traditional levels nevertheless remains dependent on the reopening of borders from one country to another. And here, there is still a complete lack of visibility.
