Wow! That is a lot of struggling airlines.....

I wonder how many of them just pushed the reset button and is now starting up again?

For a small operation, that's the easiest thing to do. Declare insolvency and start a new, debt-free company in time for 2022, when things will hopefully start picking up properly. However, that's not really an option for the big players for many reasons, with logistics being a major one.

Newbie here (kind of). How America - especially the US is recovering so fast compared to Europe? Is it just the COVID restrictions in EU or is it more to it?

bearing in mind the latest information on US vaccinations will not be complete until next July 2022 doesn't stand up to the UK and most of EU rollouts.

Based on anecdotal evidence and personal observations, I'm tempted to say that there's less vaccine scepticism in the US than there is in Europe. Mandatory or highly recommended vaccinations for multiple diseases are so deeply ingrained in the US culture that people don't really treat another vaccine as a big deal. To add to this, restrictions imposed by state governments regarding travel between states are nowhere near as ridiculous as those imposed by individual European governments. Of course, Europe still has a long way to go to reach Australia in terms of overkill travel restrictions, but that's not to say that it's a good example of coordination.

Thakis

In the EU most of the aviation market is international (between different EU nations). The travel and covid restrictions imposed by different EU nations on one another (and also the uncertainty, as these measures seem to change every 2 weeks) mean that it's much more difficult for the EU airlines to get back to normal levels, customers don't know what to expect and don't want to have to quarantine when arriving/returning from holidays.

In the US however, there is a significant internal market: plenty of routes for the airlines to operate and the customers to travel on all while staying within the same country, and avoiding most/all covid restrictions.

PilotLZ

Problem is the majority of vaccine-skeptical people behaving that way have zero or close to zero direct knowledge of medicine or biology; they rely on what they are fed from the internet with some random "the truth behind the covid vaccine" blogs and websites.
People must realize that the vaccine is the only available solution as of today and for the foreseeable future. Covid is here and will stay for an undefined amount of time, maybe forever, and it is unthinkable to wait for some miraculous instant treatment that could eventually see the light one day but in the mean time the damages to the economy and to the population's mental health will be unacceptably high to be considered as an alternative course of action.

I think more and more people are begging to accept the thought of living with covid now and with the UK committed to going back to 'normal life' as of the 19th July, I can see the aviation industry gaining traction relatively quickly! I think the main driver will be when the general public see others back on holiday again - this will likely spark FOMO and the ball will start rolling from there.

Many people are hesitant about travel solely due to the unpredictable rules and restrictions which have the potential of turning one's trip into a dreadfully expensive logistical nightmare. Fear of infection is no longer the driver of most people's decision to postpone a trip until better times. A sizable fraction of the usual travelling public in the developed world has been lucky enough to get vaccinated. Many survived COVID. Some simply aren't afraid of it because their individual risk assessment does not perceive it as an existential threat (spoiler: those are mostly young, healthy individuals who don't have anyone old or infirm around them). As long as you give those people reassurance that the rules are unlikely to change overnight, they seem to be more than happy to grab a "green pass" and jet off. That's precisely what the EU COVID certificate did. A mere week after its introduction, traffic is already at above 60% of 2019 levels. Following the big announcement regarding the cancellation of quarantine for amber list arrivals to the UK from 19th July, it can easily hit 70% by August. Remember that last summer it barely reached 45% of 2019 levels. That's quite an improvement.

justjohn737

FOMO is a big thing. Just look at the property market during the so called great “recession” of modern times. As soon as every Tom, Dick and Harry took advantage of stamp duty holidays, it blew up into a full blown bubble. Its human nature nowadays, we can’t stand seeing everyone else enjoying life especially when its all over facebook and social media, raising FOMO. So although I agree that the industry has been hit hard…one universal truth that applies to everything…what goes up must come down , and the higher it goes the harder the fall and vice versa…the pent up demand is a real thing proven time after time…stocks, property, aviation , all similar dynamics

Thank you for sharing your insight.

I'm monitoring FR24's statistics webpage closely and it seems that the industry has exceeded those numbers (60-70% of 2019) for the commercial flights (see the second chart).

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/statistics

Yesterday there were 93314 commercial flights tracked compared to 120591 on the same day in 2019, which is approximately 77% of 2019. The difference though is around 27k flights. Will these flights (and therefore jobs) ever exist again?

Interesting figures, what would be helpful if anyone had would be to see passenger numbers rather than aircraft. Some airlines are now using larger capacity aircraft for the same routes, such as LH. Whilst other airlines might be flying around with ghost jets and barely any passengers. Not to mention the greater number of cargo planes since the pandemic. A lot of factors in play that simple number of aircraft in the sky might not paint the full picture

Well said Lostinspace. Load factors and the profitability of each flight are going to determine if an Airline succeeds or fails. I suspect some are skating on thin ice right now.

Muhammad Antar, superb post, can agree with a lot of what you say, this should be printed off and posted on every flight schools notice board as a health warning )