Originally Posted by
Numero Crunchero
Icao put out a report yesterday - with many predictions going out to Mar2021.
On 12Aug20, overall, the industry is down 60% on 2019 seat capacity (btw, as pilots, we care about ASK because they pay us to fly not make revenue - RPK/yield is profitability - profitable or not, we will be flying more).
For December 2020 there are a range of scenarios predicting 56-89% of 2019 levels. (the high level assumes V shaped recovery etc)
For end of March 2021, their range of scenarios predict 66-89% of flights (seat capacity - actual figures are 63-85% when compared to what was originally planned for 2021 pre covid - so taking off that 2019-2021 growth gives you comparison to 2019 numbers).
US domestic and Asia Pacific flying has been far more resilient than just international according to them(reduction of 20-25% less than international).
Interesting other figures from their report yesterday - China was flying 85% in July 2020 vs July 2019.
Middle East flying is down by about 75% vs last year - Asia Pacific is down 50% vs last year. That might explain EK's more draconian actions.
And just for fun, and to fill in my SLS2 time, I went back and looked at air travel post 9/11. It took 6 months for ASK to recover 90% of pre 9/11 numbers - it took 3 years for it to recover 100%.
TLDR - ICAO predict 66-89% flying end of March 2021. I am assuming they will pick up another 1-24% in the following 9 months to make my 90% assumption accurate.
So yeah - I am pretty happy with my 90%+ prediction for 17months from now.
PS Farman yes it might be several years longer to get to 100% 2019 levels - just like it took 6months to get to 90% post 9/11 but another 2.5 years to get back to 100%. But hardly a reason to be so pessimistic.
The economy was in reasonable condition prior to 9/11 leaving a lot of room for reserve banks to adjust monetary policy. This time central banks are mere spectators to this slow motion train crash.