Prose and Contrails: Commercial Aviation Recovery From Covid-19

While many airlines have recently published forward-looking flight schedules that suggest aggressive rebounds in operations during mid-late summer, trends in the first half of June tell a different story.

Flight operations among the Aero 80 carriers through 15 June continue to show mostly cautious reintroductions of capacity cut in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Supply in most regions continues to languish in relatively flat fashion since the lows reached in mid-April. South America, Europe, Southwest Pacific, Sub-Saharan Africa and U.S./Canada fit that profile to a T. [See figures 1-5]

Northeast Asia seems to show slight but consistent rates of increase, but remains largely anchored to an elongated U-shape recovery.

Three regions showed signs of capacity step-ups in early June, but only one (Middle East) has held onto that most recent increment. Operations in Southeast Asia stepped up considerably in the first week of June only to abandon that increase the following week. Meanwhile, Mexico/Caribbean/Central America also saw stepped up regional ops, but those increases are showing steady signs of slipping.

US/Canada

Languishing capacity with very minor rates of increase.

Flights recovery in US/Canada — Follow US/Canada in the Aero 80 live flights dashboard

NE Asia

Slight upward trends over the past month.

Flights recovery in NE Asia — Follow NE Asia in the Aero 80 live flights dashboard

Europe

Has tried to step up twice before, took a smaller step coming into June that may hold this time.

Flights recovery in Europe — Follow Europe in the Aero 80 live flights dashboard

SW Pacific

Very subdued capacity, but June shows marginally more life that April and May

Flights recovery in SW Pacific — Follow SW Pacific in the Aero 80 live flights dashboard

South America

Two months of negligible operations, growth

Flights recovery in South America — Follow South America in the Aero 80 live flights dashboard

Sub-Saharan Africa

Like some other regions, attempts to grow ops have not held up

Flights recovery in Sub-Saharan Africa — Follow Sub-Saharan Africa in the Aero 80 live flights dashboard

Middle East

Most recent step-up in ops has held for 15 days now

Flights recovery in Middle East — Follow Middle East in the Aero 80 live flights dashboard

Mexico/Caribbean/Central America

The step-up coming into May did not hold, but the June step-up seems to be hanging on a bit longer (although it is trending back down slightly)

Flights recovery in Mexico/Caribbean/Central America — Follow Mexico/Caribbean/Central America in the Aero 80 live flights dashboard

SE Asia

A tripling of flights attempted June 1-7 was largely abandoned by June 8.

Follow SE Asia in the Aero 80 live flights dashboard

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