January 2022 v. January 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.

• This first week of December 2021 has been less about the price of oil, but more about the volatility in the price of oil. Larger seating configurations can adapt to a higher price in jet fuel, however airlines do not like the type of volatility witnessed as the new variant, Omicron, presented itself.

• 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.

• The trend lines showed little movement versus last month. However, the capacity generated by mainline and large regional equipment is nearing 100% of the January 2020 schedule.