Bottom in global flight activity reached: OAG, Flightradar24

Global commercial airline activity may have bottomed, according to OAG data on scheduled seat capacity and Flightradar24 data on the number of commercial flights.

Scheduled airline global flying capacity for this week has risen by 600,000 seats week on week to 29.8 million, to be some 80 million seats below the level this time last year, digital flight information provider OAG said Monday.

Signs of recovery were seen in eight out of 17 major regional markets analyzed, including China and Hong Kong, South America and South Asia, with the potential reopening of domestic services in India before May 15, OAG said.

In China, flying capacity rose by 1 million seats, driving Northeast Asia capacity increases.

Flying capacity for next week was fixed at 42.3 million seats, but will likely disappoint due to high levels of cancellations and schedule changes by airlines, according to OAG.

OAG highlighted the large level of last-minute cancellations being made by US airlines due to scheduled capacity not being met by customer demand.

"The last two weeks have seen all of the major US airlines reduce the number of scheduled domestic flights...around a 25% cut."

Network suspension and retrenchment was also flagged up as severely damaging connectivity. "Melbourne–Sydney, once at one thousand flights a week, is now down to 38 weekly services. But perhaps more importantly it is those markets served perhaps daily that are no longer operated where the greatest damage has occurred to the economy, routes such as Istanbul–Kigali where for Kigali access to the world has just been made a lot harder because of COVID-19," OAG said.

Elsewhere, Flightradar24 data showed the seven-day moving average in the number of global commercial flights at 31,878 Sunday, up from a low of 27,969 flights on April 18.

Meanwhile, jet fuel prices has risen off long-term lows. The physical jet CIF NWE cargo flat price was at $198/mt Thursday, its highest since April 17 and up from a COVID-19 low of $111/mt on April 27.

Meanwhile, the physical CIF NWE jet cargo differential to front-month ICE low sulfur gasoil futures was at minus $40/mt, having risen from a low of minus $88/mt on April 8.

SCHEDULED AIRLINE FLYING CAPACITY BY REGION (MILLION SEATS)

Source: OAG Schedules Analyser