Singapore Airlines Boeing 737-8
This week’s Flight Friday digs a little deeper into the Asia-Pacific region’s recovery.
While overall passenger aircraft recovery in the region has almost happened, when we scratch under the surface not all operators are equal, with each of the selected operators having very different recovery stories.
All Nippon Airways’ (ANA) initial recovery after the pandemic outbreak was reasonably strong, however utilization began to falter in 2021 before returning to approximately 90% of equivalent 2019 monthly utilization late in 2022, where it has remained since. ANA’s in-service fleet today is around 10% lower than the fleet at the end of 2019, which also helps explain the lower utilization.
Cathay Pacific today has a fleet that is 10% larger than its pre-pandemic fleet. However, this extra fleet has yet to translate into a jump in flights. Cathay’s recovery has been slow, compared to the other operators listed. It was only from mid-2022 that Cathay’s recovery began. As of March 2024, cycles are back at 95% of March 2019 levels, even with a slightly larger fleet, which means there’s still room for growth.
Korean Air initially recovered reasonably well, however, from mid-2021 to mid-2022 Korean experienced a plateau in flights. Similar to Cathay, since mid-2022, utilization has been ramping up to the 90% levels that were achieved in March 2024. Like ANA, Korean is operating a passenger fleet that is 10% smaller than 2019 levels.
Qantas initially went through some ups and downs, in part due to lockdowns happening in the second half of 2021, leading to a drop in utilization. However, after lockdowns were all lifted by December 2021, Qantas has rebounded up to almost 95% of 2019 levels. This has been achieved with a fleet that is 5% smaller than 2019 levels.
Singapore Airlines (SIA) is the leader on this chart. SIA returned to 100% equivalent 2019 levels in late 2022 and has continued its rise to levels that are 25-30% higher. Utilization has been elevated due to the addition of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft to SIA’s fleet, as well as an increase in Airbus A350s, culminating in a fleet that is 10% higher than at the end of 2019.
This data was put together using Aviation Week’s Tracked Aircraft Utilization tool.
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