- Despite lengthy lockdowns in Asia's largest aviation market, global airline capacity has risen to its highest level in 2022 this week owing to a rebound in Chinese domestic demand, Reuters reported, citing travel data firm OAG.
- According to OAG data, global airlines added 2.5 million seats in the week ending Monday, over half of which were in China.
- "This reverses the reductions in capacity that have occurred over recent weeks as a consequence of the travel restrictions in the Shanghai area in particular," the data firm said.
- According to OAG, total scheduled airline capacity in Northeast Asia increased 10.8% from the previous week. However, the region's capacity remains ~36% lower than the corresponding week in 2019, before the pandemic.
- "We still have a long and increasingly harder journey back to the 109 million seats per week in 2019 if indeed, we ever reach back to that point," OAG said. "But compared to last year, things are looking a lot better in most markets.
