AVIATION consultancy Cirium says its latest forecast for the recovery of global aviation is now two months later than it had projected in 2021, largely due to the impact of a constrained recovery in Europe, the war in Ukraine and delays in China’s recovery.

Cirium had earlier projected that in traffic (revenue passenger kilometre) terms, global volume would recover to pre-Covid levels by October this year. Although the Asia-Pacific, Europe, North America and Latin America are “close to plan”, China is “behind plan”, said Piyush Chawla, managing director for the Asia-Pacific at Cirium.

He was speaking at Inter-Airport South-east Asia 2023, a conference for businesses in airport equipment, technology, design and services that opened on Wednesday (Mar 1) at Marina Bay Sands and Convention Centre. The three-day event, themed “Re-conditioning For Asia’s Long-Haul Growth”, is expected to draw 4,000 ground handlers, architects, designers and consultants.

Chawla noted that scheduled global aviation capacity as of December 2022 was around 15 per cent lower than in 2019. This figure has been improving through the first quarter of this year, and is expected to stabilise at around 5 per cent below 2019’s figures, he said.

Looking ahead into the second quarter, the daily capacity on the trans-Atlantic routes is expected to come in at close to 2019 levels; in the trans-Pacific and Europe-Asia arena, it is projected to come in at between 20 per cent and 30 per cent below 2019 figures.

China is still trailing in its turnaround, despite a steep positive trend throughout the first quarter. International flights departing from there are expected to stabilise at around 65 per cent below 2019 figures in Q2.

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In terms of fleet sizes, the Asia-Pacific’s single-aisle fleet has stabilised at about 12 per cent below 2019’s levels; 2,130 single-aisle aircraft were tracked as of Feb 10, 2023. Growth in the twin-aisle fleet was slightly slower – coming in at 24 per cent below the 2019 benchmark, numbering 906.

China is rapidly expanding its fleet of single-aisle aircraft. A total of 2,908 such jets were tracked this year, up from 2,677 in 2020. The size of China’s twin-aisle fleet, at 348 this year, is only 16 per cent below that in 2020.

Ramping up capacity and restoring connectivity are two of the industry’s four main priorities for recovery, said Sia Kheng Yok, chief executive of the Association of Aerospace Industries (Singapore). (The remaining two priorities of the industry are aviation safety and sustainability.)

Traffic in Singapore’s Changi Airport hit 4.62 million in December last year, representing 72 per cent of the airport’s traffic in December 2019. Connectivity is at 82 per cent of pre-Covid connectivity. These figures show “we still have some ways to go and explains our optimism”, noted Sia.

That being said, there are objective lessons to be learned from Covid and the recovery seen in the last few months, he added. One is the importance of having enough ability to ramp up capacity to support the growth brought about by “revenge travel”.

According to data from Airports Council International, of the almost 300 greenfield airports planned globally, about 57 per cent are in the Asia-Pacific alone. South Asia accounts for 18 per cent, South-east Asia 17 per cent and emerging East Asia 12 per cent.

These provide opportunities for the industry to support a “green recovery” as airports around the world discuss ways to implement green practices and green design, he pointed out.