Atlantic
Resurgence — October 2022

The transatlantic market, aviation’s largest and most mature long haul route, fell into hibernation during the pandemic. Statistics from the US DoT suggest that passenger numbers in 2020 were less than 20% of the total 83m carried in 2019; and in 2021 at 21.7m were still 75% below the pre-crisis level (and 30% below the numbers who flew on the route in 1990).

But for the period to April 2022 (the latest data available) passenger demand had recovered to 60% of 2019 levels, and airlines have increasingly responded to underlying pent-up demand by restoring capacity. The schedules suggest that seat capacity for the year as a whole will be 85% restored to pre-pandemic levels. (In this definition of the North Atlantic we look at services between North America — the USA, Canada and Bermuda — and Europe, Middle East and North Africa).