Load Factors...
 

Hi,

Just wondering.... all you guys and gals that are lucky enough to still be flying around what are the load factors like?
Are you full in the back? Wondering about UK regional, LH, Tui/Jet2, Easy, Ryanair etc.... are they getting better?

Hopefully things will get back to the new normal soon:ok:

New Normal is an oxymoron. There was normal. Now there is now. The future, after the pandemic is declared over, will be normal...

Airlines are not taking old and/or uneconomical aircraft, including 747's and A380's out of service without good reason. There are simply not enough passengers to fill them and the economics of the new business model dictates the use of modern equipment.

Even 787's and A350's are idle at this time. I expect load factors will not approach pre-COVID levels for many years, if ever. In 1974 it cost me more than two months salary to fly to South Africa in economy, I suspect we will be back to similar fares, with fewer flights, very soon.

As noted above, welcome to the "new normal".

During Preflight we're getting good numbers but once we start boarding it's a different story. I am not surprised for the low load factors.
High volatile environment, no guaranties about open/closure of borders, second wave, Airlines going out of business, some countries requiring a negative covid19 test to be made max 72h before the flight. (many pax unknowing this and being blocked at the boarding gates), quarantine... etc... etc.. etc...

There's no "new normal", there's nothing normal about what's going on now. It's a long way better than the utter apocalypse we saw in April, but still VERY far from anything resembling normal. Week-on-week, the drop in air traffic above Europe is about 60% now. Hence, unusually quiet radios, parts of airport terminals dark and fenced off, lots of parked aircraft here and there, no slots, lots of unusually long direct legs...

As for load factors, it's a bit of a hit-or-miss thing. On short-haul in Europe, I've seen as much as full house and as little as less than 10% of the aircraft capacity. And anything in between. Depends on a huge number of factors for the specific flight.

I would say an airline average of around 20%. However, this is just me eyeballing. But depends on destination, and this is on a massively reduced schedule of around 40% of last year’s capacity. I know the numbers are still being thrown around by management of bookings being 85% less than they were this time last year.

Still lots of no-shows though. Actual pax tends to be 20% to 40% less than what the paperwork says.

Imagegear

Sweeping statements like this are clearly nonsense. Certain markets (UK-Europe leisure market, for example) are going to recover relatively quickly. Others (business long haul) are likely to take a lot longer.

Jamie2009

Load factors in isolation don't tell you much..

I've heard of close to 100% between some European city pairs last week but typically the number of flights per day on the routes was down from maybe half a dozen to one or two at best.

Fortunate enough to be operating throughout the whole thing - i'd say at the moment i've had about 30-35% on my flights.

Did have a number of single digit days back in the April/May.

There is no such thing as "New Normal", there are restrictions which we have now and life without restrictions........................NORMAL.

ryanair and transavia out of eindhoven not a 100% but close enough.
number of flights however lower than used to be.
word is number will go up soon.

At my company laodfactors are well above what I expected a couple of months ago. I would say last month on avarege on my flights around 75%. Some flights even close to 100%.

holding my breath for upcoming weeks though, looks like things go down south again with new rules coming.

To make a study of load factors more or less representative of something, it has to be linked to specific routes. And a number of factors have to be considered. For example, what I have observed is that load factors are consistently high on routes with large expat communities. And understandably so - many of those people spent a few months without seeing their nearest and dearest during the most severe travel restrictions. Holiday destinations are also way more popular than I expected during lockdown. As long as there aren't any draconian entry rules in either country, people tend to be quite willing to get away. Of course, not forgetting the fact that good load factors on a schedule that is anywhere between 40% and 70% of last year's still represent not-so-good absolute numbers...

I operate European flights and our loads have been usually around 160/170 to a holiday destination and 140+ on the way back.

Load factors, take a peek if you like..
 

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EcamSurprise

Interesting. Do you happen to recall what aircraft type ?

Regarding my "sweeping statements". Restrictions come and go, Short and long haul. My point is these restrictions will track the impact of COVID in countries until such time as the virus totally disappears, or as is more likely, the world comes to terms with the fact that, like so many other viruses and diseases, it is here for good. Having opened and seen the impact, European countries are now closing borders again very quickly. How long will the US remain closed or "restricted"?

I still hold to my statement of "restrictions" (lower capacities) for a period of years. Not good news but probably the reality.

DaveReidUK

I think they were all on 320-186s.

I work for one of the bigger UK airlines. SH load factors are pretty good probably an average of about 70%. LH is a different story, we are flying less now than during April / May and load factors on average are about 20%. Worrying times I'm afraid.

How are the load factors looking now on the uk regional flights? Are the planes full or near empty? Hope things are picking up.....

You have to factor in that even if load factors do look encouraging there are still far fewer daily rotations than pre Covid times.

I am sure long haul are making more money from cargo than pax.

UK media ranting about numbers of flights from India means nothing if the flights were cargo only, or minimal pax.

Sad sad times, and the early end of a great career for too many of us.

Pistonprop

Totally agree. Having been on a few flights lately the load factors were absolutely dismal. The UK media blaming all of climate change and every variant on the travel industry is absolutely crippling the recovery.

It is still some very dark days ahead for the industry in my opinion if furlough ends and this current pace is maintained. God help us all in winter '21.

And when we are all back to 'normal', be it old or new, the cry will go up from management, "Loads are up but yields are down so we won't be reviewing salaries this year". ;)

OMG are you really expecting a pay rise?

I did 10 legs as a SLF in the last 6 months. Seen anything from cca 25% (domestic flight within Italy) to full house MXP - FUE FUE - MXP (with EZ)
And zero service on 4 hours flight - (EZ) to bananabreads and drinks on 1 hour flight - (KLM)