February 2022 v. February 2020
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.
Whereas the price of a barrel of oil was setting some records in November 2021, the price cooled as a new variant appeared and the concern over its impact on the recovery increased. It is currently trading at $75/bbl. and traders are likely awaiting some clearer direction of the U.S. and global economies.
Unless you have been asleep under a rock, the number of holiday cancellations has fully unmasked work force shortages. Swelbar-Zhong will continue to monitor but immediate workforce issues likely emanate from Omicron and thus hard to decipher the cause of the shortages.
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. United was joined by Delta in announcing schedule changes involving small jet aircraft.