Europe's airlines are now better matching supply to demand

Europe's capacity recovery as a percentage of 2019 levels remains on the plateau it has occupied since the last week of May-2022. This appears to be helping an improving load factor trend.

Europe's total seat capacity is at 87.1% in the week commencing 8-Aug-2022, which is a shortfall of -12.9% against the equivalent week 2019.

Europe remains fourth in the regional ranking, above Asia Pacific, where capacity is down -21.6% versus 2019, and the Middle East, where capacity is down -14.0%.

IATA data show that European airline load factor was 86.0% in Jun-2022, only 1.5ppts short of the Jun-2019 level. The gap to 2019 load factors has narrowed every month since Apr-2022 and the trend has been broadly improving for more than a year.

The capacity recovery may have lost momentum, but load factor gains show that supply is now more closely balanced with demand.