In its report OAG says that the total number of seats is 115.9 million, as against the forecast of 116.1 million
Global airline capacity has fallen faster than forecast for this week as airlines cut 300,000 seats, a fall of 0.3 pc over the last week, says latest report by OAG, an aviation industry data tracking and analyst firm.
In its report OAG says that the total number of seats is 115.9 million, as against the forecast of 116.1 million, with the excess cuts amounting to 260,000 seats.
OAG says that looking forward, capacity globally is expected to drop to 113.5 million seats in the coming weeks, before the start of the winter season in November when weekly capacity will be in the region of 97.5-98 million seats.
According to OAG, the drop this week is also driven by domestic capacity, which fell by 230,000 seats to 69.4 million. Last week’s projected capacity for this week had anticipated it to remain at the same level, but carriers are trimming capacity, mostly in the US and China. Domestic airline seats this week are 4.4 pc higher than the same week in 2019.
OAG says that looking ahead, domestic capacity is expected to level off at around 68.7 million seats per week for the next 3 months, before the beginning of the winter season in late October which weekly seats will fall to around 58 million.
OAG says that in contrast, the international flight capacity has fallen far less, by only 100,000 seats, to 46.5 million, in line with the predictions.
Looking at the 2019 year over year comparison, international seats have increased a little and are now 7.3 pc down this week compared to the same week in 2019.
Over the coming weeks international seats are expected to reduce down to an average of 44.9 million weekly seats, before falling to 39.3 million at the beginning of the winter season.
OAG says that the domestic capacity position in domestic markets in both China and the United States have impacted the global capacity this week. It says that while North East domestic capacity is down 0.9 pc or almost 200,000 seats week on week, although this market is now 13.3 pc ahead of the same week in 2019. In North America, domestic capacity is down 0.6 pc week on week, equating to 121,000 fewer seats, whilst the respective position compared to 2019 this week is up 5.7 pc.
