Last Week in Europe – Monday 11 April 2022

Last week was the second week of the summer 2022 (S22) season which had started on Sunday 27 March. After celebrating the launch of over 300 new routes during the first week, the following week has seen airlines launch a further 53 new routes according to our analysis. This contributed to the 7-day average recovery rate for European flights (comparing 2022 movements with those during the same period in 2019) increasing by 1.0 percentage point to 79.1% as of Saturday 9 April. Among the 12 airlines tracked in more detail in our graph, both Ryanair and Wizz Air achieved a recovery rate of around 110%. This means that the two ULCCs are actually operating 10% more flights than they did in early April 2019. The leading flag-carriers are Turkish Airlines (102%) and Iberia (92%). The figure for Turkish Airlines is slightly higher than the underlying trend as back in early April 2019 (the comparison period) the carrier was moving its operations to the new Istanbul airport and was not yet up to full speed.

Gatwick re-launch boosts British Airways

Among the 12 airlines shown in the graph, seven showed an improvement in their recovery rates compared with a week earlier while five showed a small decline. Significant improvements were registered by Vueling (from 71.3% to 92.8%) and British Airways (from 64.1% to 71.1%). The UK flag-carrier saw a significant improvement as it finally resumed short-haul operations from Gatwick after an absence of almost two years.

Lufthansa overtakes Turkish Airlines for third place

On Saturday 9 April the leading airline for flights in Eurocontrol airspace was Ryanair (2,764 flights), a long way ahead of easyJet (1,420), Lufthansa (1,189) and Turkish Airlines (1,127). Then came Air France (863), KLM (696), Wizz Air (669) and British Airways (635). Among airports, the busiest for flights were Frankfurt (1,141), London LHR (1,097), Paris CDG (1,090), Istanbul IST (1,049) and Amsterdam (1,041). However, on Sunday 10 April Amsterdam was the busiest with 1,170 flights with Paris CDG being busiest on Thursday 7 April with 1,138 flights. Want more information on:

• European seat capacity changes made since last week for April, May and June?
• Over 50 new routes launched in Europe during the last seven days?

If so, then check out our weekly Last Week in Europe report which can be downloaded here.