Ailevon Pacific, Asia/Pacific: Air Service Development Insights, Data, Analysis & Commentary from a fresh perspective – February 4th 2026
Welcome to 2026! And your first client newsletter of the year. We hope you had a relaxing break and have come back refreshed and ready to take your aviation connections and aspirations to new highs in the year ahead. And 2026 may be the year where we finally see a full recovery in capacity & volumes for almost all destinations? For some, we weren’t quite there by Dec 2025, compared to 2019. But let’s stop making that comparison! We’ll try!
In January 2026, the Asia-Pacific aviation sector has been characterized by a “growth vs. yield” paradox. While passenger traffic is projected to grow by 7.3%—outperforming the global average—airlines in our region (mostly) are grappling with thin profit margins and persistent supply chain bottlenecks.
Looking back briefly, but also reflecting on the current quarter, bolstered by the Lunar New Year, international passenger and cargo markets has started the year on a strong note. China’s international traffic has finally normalized to 2019 levels due to eased visa restrictions.
Elsewhere, AirAsia X completed its acquisition of Capital A’s aviation business on January 19, aiming to combine seven airlines under one banner. Air India and Singapore Airlines deepened their partnership with a commercial cooperation framework agreement.
The “Supply Chain Straightjacket” continues, despite record demand, as aircraft delivery delays are expected to persist throughout 2026 due to engine shortages and supplier bottlenecks. This has led to record-high load factors, projected to reach 84.4% in the region.
However, market investment analysts warn of a “yield trap,” where rising operational and distribution costs (such as OTA commissions) threaten to erase slim profit margins, currently estimated at just 2.3% to 3.9% for regional carriers.
Finally… while countries like Thailand are moving forward with 2% SAF targets for 2026, industry leaders express frustration over the reliance on SAF as a “hard-to-get commodity,” advocating for broader technological breakthroughs & greater support to achieve the outcomes the wider populations see as necessary.
There is never a standstill moment!
Stay Connected: Your Monthly Industry Insight
A reminder that this newsletter is published on the first Wednesday of each month (except January), serving as your one-stop digest for a re-cap on recent news, trends, and opportunities in Australasian & Asian aviation. Please share this newsletter with colleagues and industry contacts—replies are always welcome, especially if you’d like to be added to our curated distribution list.
Monthly Insight: Airport OTP across Australia & New Zealand
This month we take a look back using our subscription based data sets, to see where the top 50 airports in Australia/New Zealand rank for overall published On Time Performance (OTP) in the last quarter of 2025.
Here some key findings from the analysis:
- Regional/smaller airports consistently achieve the highest on-time performance, often exceeding 85%.
- On-time performance generally declines as airport scale and operational complexity increase, but outcomes vary by congestion intensity rather than size alone.
- Perth outperforms more congested east-coast hubs, demonstrating that large airports can sustain ~78% OTP when structural congestion is lower.
- TOP 3 airports with more capacity: Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane sit at the lower end of OTP rankings, reflecting the impact of slot pressure, peak congestion, and delays.
- New Zealand airports tend to rank higher than Australian majors, indicating more resilient domestic operating environments, or perhaps less operational depth generally.
- Leisure airports show weaker OTP, highlighting the role of demand volatility.
- Mid-tier airports cluster tightly around 74-77% range, suggesting a balance between scale, growth, and operational reliability.
If you’d like to take a closer look at your airports performance against your peers, reach out to us for an analysis, either as a snapshot or ongoing measure of performance from our subscription-based data sets, only available on a pay for use basis.
What’s Next: Looking Ahead to Launceston 2026, 10-12 June 2026 – register now!
Registrations for the Launceston Roundtable 10-12 June 2026 are now open. Interest continues to grow from airlines wishing to participate and share their latest developments and news. Register now to secure your discounted rate.
Excitement is building as we have locked in a venue for 2026 – Peppers Silo hotel. This fantastic hotel & meeting space is a joy to stay and experience all LST has to offer. We’ll take registrations from next month, as we already have locked in is now a surprise C-Suite Qantas Exec that will share his thoughts at a Fireside Chat, as well as Jeff from Link Airways… with more to come! As Dr. Amar Singh from FJ recently said….
“The FJ Team is really privileged to be given the opportunity to attend and be a speaker at the annual Roundtable Conference. It provides us the opportunity to strengthen our relationship with various airports in AU/NZ and have a better understanding of the markets. By attending the annual conference, it makes our work far more efficient when launching new markets like CBR & CNS in the past 2 years”.
We’re also pleased to advise the venue for the Thursday night Formal Dinner, Mud Bar, located minutes away from the conference hotel.
Click here Aviation Round Table Conference June 2026 – Accommodation Rate, to book your discounted stay, thanks to Accor, Peppers Silo Launceston. Alternatively, use the two codes below when booking:
