December 2021 v. December 2019
A Monthly Look at Capacity Trends by Single-Aisle Aircraft With a Focus on the Deployment of Aircraft With 50 Seats or Less
Commentary
For small communities, it is the network carriers that have been their lifeline enabling access the air transportation system. Going forward, it will be hard for the network carrier sector to be everything to everyone as they have historically.
As the industry watches the price of a barrel of oil increase (this morning 11/10/21, both Brent and WTI futures are near $85/bbl) and the uncertainty of the trained and available skilled labor market (pilots and mechanics) persist, it was suggested by many that we begin to track the capacity deployment in the regional sector.
The trend toward larger airframes in the regional sector has been underway since changes in mainline pilot scope clauses were negotiated as the industry restructured. This is expected to continue but of course will be subject to negotiations with mainline pilots.
Most important is to appreciate is that the single-aisle aircraft service recovery is being done with large regional and mainline equipment. Small regional equipment is now performing less than two-thirds of the departures performed in 2019.
We suggested that the news would get worse, well it did.