Industry recovers target of 100 million seats: OAG

For the first time since January 2019, the world's airlines will achieve more than 100 million seats this week; however, with last minute cancellations, that figure may drop. The cancellation rate is still exceptionally low.

Consulting firm OAG said much of this optimism is based on additional resources returning to the industry, which may present a challenge as August will see 37% more seats than last year with some major markets hoping to double this number.

Meanwhile, Western Europe is the largest regional market with 23.6 million seats scheduled for the week, an increase of more than 62% compared to 2021 and almost 89% from the 2019 level. Northeast Asia continues its recovery with China adding more than half a million seats.Japan is also slowly reopening with more international travel, with capacity up 62% in the same week last year.

In Europe, once again, the UK leads in terms of year-on-year capacity growth, barely three times as many seats as the same week last year and now stands at 85% of pre-pandemic levels.

There are no big changes in capacity for the major US-based airlines as network airlines take a few days off and the list of airlines remains unchanged, apart from British Airways pulling out at the expense of JetBlue.

Until the end of last week the cancellation rate (defined as within 48 hours of service) for regular flights in the United Kingdom in June was 1.75%, in the Netherlands it was 3.7% and in Germany it was 2.2%.

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