Europe flight cancellations cap capacity recovery, boost load factor

In the past week there has been another batch of headlines about flight cancellations and airport capacity caps, including at British Airways, Wizz Air, KLM, Lufthansa and Heathrow Airport. Staffing shortages across much of European aviation have limited the industry's ability to meet pent-up demand as the summer peak approaches.

This helps to explain why Europe's capacity recovery as a percentage of 2019 levels has been range-bound for eight weeks.

The region's seat capacity was at 86.6% in the last week of May-2022 and is at 86.4% in the week commencing 11-Jul-2022, or a shortfall of -13.6% against the equivalent week in 2019. Europe remains fifth in the regional ranking, above only Asia Pacific, where capacity is down -21.4% versus 2019.

Europe's passenger traffic is recovering at a slower pace than capacity – at least, it was up to the most recent monthly traffic data in May-2022. Nevertheless, passenger load factors were improving, and this trend is likely continuing into the summer peak, partly thanks to cancellations.