South East Asia still suffers from a lack of air capacity

Airline capacity analysis website OAG has been confirming this for some weeks now: South-East Asia is now the fastest-growing region for air transport in terms of the number of seats year on year. For example, if we look at the first week of September 2022 compared with 2021, the number of seats is up by almost 200%. This is the second best performance in the world, just behind the South Pacific region.

Compared with 2019, seat capacity on 5 September was still 28.5% lower. A figure which shows that South-East Asia is still far from having completed its convalescence. By way of comparison, on 5 September capacity in Western Europe was only 12% below 2019 levels, and in North America -5.7%.

The recovery in South-East Asia remains highly dependent on its connectivity with North-East Asia. - particularly China and Japan.

In 2019, of the 10 million weekly seats on offer on average, OAG indicated that 16% of total capacity was on routes to and from China, Korea and Japan. However, as long as China continues to apply its "Zero Covid" policy, there is little prospect of a strong recovery in air traffic. The quarantine of the city of Chengdu due to cases of Covid has resulted in a total reduction in seat capacity of 14% from one week to the next, according to OAG.

But the signs of a recovery in South-East Asia have been multiplying for several weeks. Visit terminal 4 of Singapore reopens this September, Thai Airways announces more frequencies in Europe, Air AsiaX resumes flights to Australia, while Cebu Pacific in the Philippines has just taken over the Manila-Bangkok and Manila-Brunei routes. Vietnam Airlines has also restored 80% to its international network, including 5 weekly flights from Paris à Hanoi.

The rebound has not yet wiped out the loss of traffic between 2019 and 2022

Preliminary traffic figures for July 2022 published by the Association of Asia-Pacific Airlines (AAPA) show that growth is becoming more robust in the region as international air passengers return. According to the association's figures, the number of international passengers carried increased fivefold between January and July 2022 compared with 2021.

Asia recorded just 8.8 million passengers between January and July 2021, companies in Asia-Pacific accounted for almost 43 million of them for the same period in 2022. Average load factor of international passengers jumped 48 points to stand once again at 80%. A figure not seen since the pandemic.

Subhas Menon, AAPA Director General, commented on these figures. " The region's airlines are resuming flights to more destinations as economies reopen for business and international travel. If the number of international passengers carried by airlines in the first half of 2022 is 5 times higher than in 2021, a full recovery is far from certain. Traffic in July averaged only 34 % of the corresponding month before the pandemic." . Especially as inflation and soaring fuel prices see prices soar. This can only hamper recovery.